And I Saw the Beast upon a Cold World
by Cobray
Summary: Dark AU, Elsanna. Sometimes the smallest decisions can change the course of history. Sometimes taking the choices that look just and noble at the time will lead you down the blackest roads. Princess Elsa grew up unafraid of her powers, with Anna by her side, and when events begin to conspire against them there's nothing she won't do to protect the things she loves.
1. A Birth, A Girl, A Mountain

_Hello. There will be a real authors note next chapter but just for tonight: This fic is based on a small prompt plus series of ficslets and drawings made by patronustrip (dot tumblr dot com) and her fans. Disney owns Frozen._

* * *

Prologue

There's a moment, before the first pebble falls.

Before the unstoppable force of nature, a thousand tons of ice and snow, majestic and beautiful and terrible, is born and begins its descent.

When the slightest breeze, the smallest breath, the lightest touch, can change the path the avalanche will take. One rock's careless first bounce that will decide whether the mountain will feast on a silent forest not walked in for a hundred years, or on a village twenty miles away that was built with more optimism than common sense.

Nature throws her dice. The small rock, dislodged by the gale-force winds of the peak, picks up speed and flies into the air. It impacts like the first cymbal-clash of an orchestra, its vibrations travelling through the ground and dislodging more, awakening the great white death and pointing it downwards with one word; _go._ The pebble has chosen.

Tonight it will be blood.

Like a ravenous beast the avalanche descends the flank of the mountain towards the small and insignificant lights of those who dare intrude upon its home.

Most are lucky, asleep from a hard day of chopping wood or herding their flocks or tending their small homes. The avalanches picks them up in their beds and devours them before they can stir, only a few opening bleary eyes at the sound of what had to be a stray wolf or bear too close to the village before the thought is obliterated along with the thinker. Those less fortunate, awake by stress or recklessness, see the true form of the terrible majesty bearing down on them. They die at their windows and porches, the pitch-black emptiness parting in front of their eyes for just one second to reveal the angry white fist that goes into and through them and crushes them into nothing. Those older and who know the sounds of the mountain may already be shouting and pleading, running for the sled dogs at the edge of the village, but they are overtaken and devoured just the same.

The passage of the monster leaves nothing as it swallows up man's small efforts; buildings and tools digested into the earth as easily as flesh and bone. All that remains is a pure field of white as the beast settles back to sleep, the mile-squad of ugly carved stone and wood transformed back into pristine magnificence.

Days later, the braver men of the city go up the mountain looking for survivors of the mountain's wrath. They go slowly and carefully, hunched over themselves and treating every step like a glass floor, in case the wrong noise or wrong step should re-awaken the beast upon them. Like supplicants to a wrathful goddess they crawl to the white field, hoping that somehow she will have missed one or two survivors, hiding in caves or under rocks. Their hope is in vain.

Unlike an invading army there can be no counterattack or retaliation against the mountain. She stands silent, impervious to the wails of the relatives and friends of her victims. For those left behind there is no comfort, no lesson learned to help the next village survive her wrath. There was nothing that could have been done or measures that could have been taken. The village had simply lost their gamble. They had sat down to play at nature's table, and by inches and degrees they had forgotten they had been playing at all, until one day she had simply reached out and cut them down with one message:

_You are nothing to me. If you go I will not stop you. But if you stay I will kill you on a whim, and not all your intelligence or strength will pause me one moment._

All decided on the first bounce of one pebble at the summit of the mountain, unseen and ignored by all.

All but one.

* * *

"Oh my god…"

The girl doesn't hear the gasp of the maid beside her as the single bolt of lightning illuminates the world outside the castle. Her eyes are locked on the window, staring into the night past the castle's fires and guard posts, out towards the north mountain. She doesn't need to hear the roar of the avalanche, or need light to watch as it travels down the slopes. She can feel its movement in her bones, the same way she can feel the village in its path as pinpricks on her flesh. On the mountain's flesh. She drops her doll and steps closer to the window, pressing her hands against the glass to try and feel better what's happening out there. For a moment she sees her own eyes on the glass, a gangly blue-eyed girl barely three years old, her outline lost inside the huge white behemoth that looms over the town. For one moment the reflection of her eyes is imposed on the mountain and she imagines it is staring back at her.

Then the moment is lost as simultaneously rough hands grab her by the shoulder and pull her away from the cold glass, and a scream – much louder than the shock of the servant girl – echoes through the castle corridors.

_Mommy._

A huge red face descends to stare at her and it speaks with the small anger that only a mixture of exasperation, love and fatigue can manage. "My lady _please_, what have I told you about wandering the castle?"

The young princess looks at the old servant. "N't t'night," she mutters, her eyes glancing back at the mountain beyond the glass. By tomorrow morning it will be silent, and the men will head out to recover the bodies and lament the dead. Tonight though Princess Elsa of Arendelle looks up at the mountain, and although she hasn't been taught the words or the concepts yet she knows that the mountain is a power impossible to control or shackle and all she wants to do – more than she wants to go to bed or run to her mother – is watch it.

"Not any night at all young lady, but _especially_ not tonight," the old servant says, trying to get back the princess's wandering attention. He grabs her hand and drags her away as roughly as he dares, eager to get the young girl – _princess – _back into her bed and then hurry to the queen's side.

Elsa tries to wrench her hand from the man's grasp, uselessly of course. "Wanna stay!" She looks up at him with giant blue eyes. "'M not tired," she lies.

Kai pauses, torn between orders from the king to watch over the birth and from the queen to make sure little Elsa was safe. He came because even though the gap between royalty and chief usher was greater than heaven and earth, he could look into those small blue eyes and see a daughter he would never have. He had gone to find her even though nothing inside the castle could possibly with the little princess harm.

_Not surprised she can't sleep tonight, with all the noise and bustle. _"Little princesses should be in bed at this time of night," he chides his young ward.

But a three year-old princess is still a three year-old. "Don't wanna," Elsa replies, and pouts. She knows something important is happening in the castle. Knows she'll have a little brother or sister to play with soon – she wants a brother so she can finally have a boy she can boss around and tell what to do like Kai tells her – and that even though the sounds mommy makes scare her, it will be over soon, and princesses are brave. She snuck out of her room to try and get to the library where the picture-books were kept while everyone was busy with mommy, but had stopped when she had passed through the outer north corridors with their floor-to-ceiling glass windows, and had seen the storm.

And beyond it, the mountain.

Kai glances over at the maid, stood waiting for orders like the dozens of others like her at every corner of the castle, ready at a word to gather whatever was needed for a difficult birth. He catches her eye and then gestures down at the crown princess. "Watch her." The maid nods, no less immune to the charms of a cute young toddler than anyone. He lets go of Elsa's hand and kneels down until they're almost at eye level. "Now Elsa, you must be good tonight, understand?" Elsa nods her head so fast she's a blur. "I need to go be with your mother while she…er…makes your new family. So you listen to…"

"Ida," the maid says.

"Listen to Ida and be a _good girl_, understood?"

"Yes," Elsa mutters into her doll.

"What are you going to be Elsa?"

"A good girl," she replies happily, smiling and giggling as Kai lets go of her hand. Elsa knows a good girl does what people tell her to do, and she walks over to the – to her one of many interchangeable – maid and offers up a hand. Above her head in the world of adults Kai gives a thankful nod that Ida returns, then without another word the old servant stalks from the candlelit corridor back to the east wing, where the king paces worriedly, and older and wiser women scuttle about the queen doing what they can.

The maid leans down as Kai did. "So little El- your majesty, what do you want to do? A midnight snack?"

The library and its picture books have been long forgotten now, and Elsa points back to the centre of the corridor. "Want to watch," she says clearly.

The maid is young but not stupid – nobody employed by the royal family was anything other than superbly qualified – and for a half-second she pauses as she hears something in the little princesses' voice. Something a little bit older than a toddler who wants a hug or food or a toy. It sounds less like want and more like _need._

She brushes it aside. The princess is only three.

Instead she smiles and nods. "Alright, but only for a little while, okay?"

Elsa nods happily. "Okay!"

Together the maid and the princess stare out at the night beyond, the mountain now quieter. The maid looks out and wonders how bad it was (it was bad) and whether tomorrow she will be called on with the rest of the downstairs staff to prepare burial shawls (she will).

Two princesses look out of the window with her.

One princess, the good little princess that Kai and Ida and her mother and her father see, looks out and sees the pretty white snow-covered mountain wrapped in night's velvet. She wants to go up there, trample across its icy slopes and lie back and make snow angels. She wants to go up there with her new baby brother and sled down it and have snowball fights on it and make snow angels together (hers the best of course) and a thousand other things that little girls do when they have not a worry in the world and a glorious future waiting for them.

The other princess stares out through the same eyes, the princess neither Kai nor Ida, her mother nor father, nor has anyone else ever looked deep enough to see. This princess stares at the mountain and sees the unstoppable fury of the avalanche, and the unyielding pressure of the ice. The second princess sees the wind howling at the peak, snow trailing from it like a glorious cloak of freezing death, and the thousands of tons of rocky core as a castle stronger than anything Arendelle or the world could ever hope to build. The second princess looks at the mountain and sees a throne better than any other in the world.

To blame them would be unfair, because the young lady who they watch over is unlike anyone who has ever lived, and there was no way in creation they could have known how important the choice to stay or go would be. Maybe if Kai or Ida had led her away from the window it could have been prevented, the thoughts and feelings a three year-old shouldn't have buried away safely, deep under the large joys and small sorrows that would come from growing up safe and loved. She would follow the trail blazed by a thousand princesses before her, a life of comfort, safety and – if she were lucky - love. She would grow up and have children and a castle of her own. The strange thoughts of the mountain would be forgotten forever, papered over with a life well-lived. Maybe not an exceptional life, but a happy one.

But they do not lead her away. The maid and her charge spend the night in that corridor, looking out over the kingdom towards the north mountain, and in those hours the seed of fascination is planted, to begin the long and slow bloom to obsession.

The first pebble has fallen, although none have heard it or will suspect it for many years.

As elsewhere in the castle her mother screams one last time and her little sister is born, Elsa of Arendelle stares up at the mountain and sees her goddess, and she is lost to it forever.


	2. Makganyene

_This girl is Anna, and she's _your_ little sister now._

The stormclouds had rolled outside and when the final lightning-flash finally cleared Elsa had found herself looking down into a pair of teal-green eyes. "Anna."

Strong arms enfolded her as the king lifted her up into his arms, cradling her against his chest in a mirror-pose of the queen and the newest princess. "That's right," he had said. "This is a big responsibility for you Elsa."

She's had responsibilities before but only small ones. Is it like her favourite toys and she's going to have to make sure she doesn't lose her? Is she going to make sure she's cleaned and fed? Elsa has servants that do that though, so…

The king goes on. "Little Anna is going to look up to you one day, so you have to show her what a good princess looks like."

Oh, phew, this is easier. Elsa has picture-books that tell her what a good princess is, she can just show Anna those. "Okay!" Elsa knows she's smart. So young and already she knows so much about how to be a proper princess. She knows how to curtsey when visitors come and how to always smile at them even when their jokes are bad. She knows she should be polite to people underneath her and above her and not to eat too fast or else she'll choke. She knows all of this is just a small part of being a good girl and that the more she grows up and grows smarter the more she'll learn so that she can keep being a good girl and keep her father and mother happy.

She also knows that good girls don't wake up in the middle of the night to sneak to the north corridor and look out at the mountain. But it's such a little thing, and unlike when she knocks something over or does something wrong nobody has to clean up after her or tell her to do it again until she gets it right. So it can't be _that_ bad, and all she gets is a little more tired than usual on the morning. It's hard to be a good girl _all the time._

"Look, she's opening her eyes." The king leans down over the bed.

Elsa watches as the little creature squirms in its white robe, then suddenly she's looking down into a pair of teal-green eyes so pure and clear they could have been lit from some inner light. To Elsa who has lived all her life in a castle by a fjord it's like staring into the ocean.

"Beautiful," her mother whispers as the baby tries to struggle out of its swaddling, waving her arms around.

Entranced by those eyes Elsa reaches down at the ever-so-small and vulnerable child, and one of little Anna's hands reaches back up. A tiny hand grabs her finger and holds it as tight as a new-born can, and Elsa can feel the small warmth radiating from it.

"Anna," she whispers quietly, captivated.

The pebble bounces a second time.

* * *

If the disappointment of having a little sister instead of a brother had been made irrelevant by that small green gaze and warm hand, the years afterwards swept away even the memory of it.

The baby grew from a helpless crying bundle of noise and sleepless nights into a toddler whose enthusiasm for life – and getting into trouble – seemed to stretch beyond the bounds of her body. Anna was forever clambering where she shouldn't go, and sometimes where she _couldn't_ go. The castle staff who had lived through a curious but careful and obedient young Elsa panicked and then adjusted to the much more adventurous and rebellious second princess. Lectures from the staff on why she couldn't go wherever she wanted were met not with polite acceptance but with crossed arms and pouting sulks. Kai could already see adolescence and beyond with resignation, when the fiery redhead could reach the higher doorknobs of the castle's outer walls, and _really_ get into trouble. Until then the biggest damage was confined to the kitchens, a cook turning back to the table to spot a flash of red hair vanishing beyond a door, and two apples or cakes missing from a plate. Always two of whatever she took, one for her and one for the sister she worshipped. Anna would hunt down her sibling and the two of them would retreat to some remote part of the castle to celebrate and eat their plunder.

The king and queen looked on with pride and joy as Elsa transformed before their eyes from a gangly toddler into a young girl whose intelligence and grace shone out from behind blue eyes that captivated any who looked into them. Picture-books were replaced with instructional manuals on peerage and how to address other royalty, and lessons on how to curtsey without falling down and how to read and write slid smoothly into court manners and how one conducts themselves at a grand ball. Everything thrown at her Elsa caught and took in her stride. Everything.

* * *

The staff are used to it by now. Guards on their ceremonial patrols, maids carrying linens or a dozen other people that form the lifeblood of a castle as big as theirs would take the northern corridor and find the princess already there, staring out of the window silently, a contented expression on her face. Arendelle is beautiful from above, and from the northern corridor the entire kingdom is laid out like a map, the castle's moat giving way to the main town beyond, and the rolling fields of green grazing pastures and golden waves of corn hugging the side of the mountain before the land becomes too steep for it, and after that only the pristine untouched mountain beyond. All of the passing servants assume Elsa loves the view of the kingdom she'll one day rule, and only Kai and maybe Ida can sense something just a little beyond a childish fascination. When Elsa stares out she isn't looking down at the town, she's staring up at the mountain, and those blue eyes shine just a little brighter as she does.

The crash of breaking china echoes through the air, reverberating up and down the long corridor as the maid passes by the princess. It takes her a second but the young woman realises that it isn't morning condensation that's misting up the huge floor-to-ceiling window, and it isn't white paint that's covering the space where the princess is standing.

Young Elsa stands in the north corridor, a smile as bright as the sun plastered over her young face as behind her patterns of frost etch themselves onto the glass. Pale lines radiate out from the girl's hands forming the uneven scribbles and lines that another child might have done using a stolen paintbrush. The maid looks in shock as above Elsa's head the lines come together and thicken to form a child's doodle of a six-pointed star. Snowflakes dance and swirl around her as she waves her arms like a conductor.

"Look! Look what I can do!"

The broken china is forgotten, and Elsa watches as the maid turns and bolts from the room. Left alone in her favourite part of the castle, the girl just shrugs, and goes back to her work on the window. She can see the shape she wants to make in her mind, all she needs is a little practise. How much time passes she doesn't notice or care, but when she's next disturbed it's not by a servant girl at all.

"Elsa, my love?"

"Elsa?"

Elsa shouts in joy and turns away, the window instantly forgotten as she runs to her mother and father. Skipping to a stop she looks up and smiles, beaming with pride. She doesn't know about what her power is exactly, only that she knows it's beautiful. "Mother, father, look what I can…"

She trails off as she see her parents. They aren't staring at her, they're staring past her. No smiles full of pride the same way as when she recites perfectly from her exercise books or manages to remember the correct table manners for a visiting count. Instead she looks up into her mother's eyes and sees fear, and hears from her father something that will affect her much, much more as he speaks thoughtlessly words that will haunt Arendelle for decades to come.

"A curse…?"

To young Elsa eager only to please her parents and show them the beautiful and amazing things she can do, it's like a gut-punch that smashes into all her happiness and confidence and drives them deep, deep down into her heart. The king seems to catch himself and puts a smile on his face but it's too late, because through the whole conversation that night as her parents comfort her and ask her _how_ _long _and _how strong_ the thing that will be imprinted on her memory is the fear on her mother's face and the fear in her father's voice. At the end of the long talk her parents will hug her very closely and tell Elsa that they still love her, and Elsa listens and knows they aren't lying, but that doubt will always be there in her head.

The pebble has bounced its final time, and the course of the avalanche has been set. The slightest push in a different direction at any point could have averted it, or at the very least changed its course. But like nature's beast nobody with the power to hold it back had known until far, far too late. The only thing left to do was watch as it fell, and try to survive its onslaught.

Because when Princess Elsa goes to bed that night she isn't thinking about the dangers or the costs of her unique power. She's only thinking that all her life she's tried to be a good girl, the best she could be. She tried to create something beautiful for her parents, to make them proud that she had a skill only she could use, and instead they had called it a curse and had it scrubbed from the walls. As it had been cleared away from the window Elsa had seen the mountain behind it. She and the mountain were the same, kindred spirits who could create something pure and white and beautiful. The scale was different, that was all. But where people treated the mountain with reverence and respect, she was told it was a curse to be removed as fast as possible. It wasn't fair.

The mountain doesn't have to apologise for creating something beautiful, so why should she?

* * *

"Elsaaaaa."

Anna lands on Elsa's bed with a _flooompf_ noise, shaking the comfy bed up and down as the little sister tries to shake her bigger sister awake.

"Elsa wake up!"

_Urgh._ She's had an entire day on the lives and genealogy of the countries surrounding Arendelle. Elsa feels like her head is full of the names of old dead men she can already barely remember. "Go away Anna," she mutters, trying to dig herself down deeper into her pillow and pretend she's dead.

The ploy fails miserable as Anna falls on top of her staring dramatically at painted ceiling. "But _Elsa._ The _sky's_ awake, so _I'm_ awake. So that means we have to _play!"_

Elsa doubles down and plays dead some more. For a few seconds there's blissful silence as maybe Anna gives up for the night and goes back to her own room and lets her sleep. But then she feels her little sister shift above her and a pair of teal eyes materialise close to her own as a voice says…

"Doyouwannabuildasnow_maaaan?"_

Elsa can't help the smile. She loves snowmen. She loves her sister.

She throws back the covers.

* * *

They laugh as the take the stairs three at a time and push their way into room, both giggling without knowing why but not wanting to stop. Anna had tried to take them both to the castle's central stairway but Elsa knew what her little sister wanted and knew she could give it to her better elsewhere.

They both skid to a halt at the centre of the northern corridor and Anna jumps up and down in joy, just so happy to be playing with her sister that Elsa would do anything she wanted.

"Do the magic _do the magic!"_

And Elsa's only too happy to oblige. Since she had dared to show Anna her power and the little girl had responded with delight and wonder, they've had dozens - maybe hundreds it feels like - of playdates like this one. Anna glories in the amazing power her big sister has, and Elsa grows ever more confident showing off, making snowmen and slides and tiny ice creatures. The only reward she needs is the smile on Anna's face.

Which is why when it happens, the tragic result is all the more crushing.

* * *

_No, no no no no no._

Elsa opens her mouth to scream but no sound comes out as she scrabbles to her feet and runs over to Anna, lying motionless only metres away. "_Anna? ANNA!"_ She turns her over and this time she does cry out when she sees the results of her own careless power. The frost is fading from the warm cloth but Elsa can still see where the shot landed. Slipping on her own ice like a stupid, stupid, _bad_ little girl and the pillar of snow that was supposed to have cushioned Anna'd jump had instead went wide, straight into the air, and had hit in the worst place possible.

Directly over her heart.

She wants to open her mouth and scream and cry and shout for her mommy as loud as she can. Wants big strong hands to come and look after her and Anna and take care of all of it.

But she knows she can't do that. She can feel it in her bones and in her own heart, the same heart that when told her power was a curse knew that it wasn't, _it wasn't it wasn't it wasn't._

If she cries out now then her father's words and mother's eyes will be true. Her power will be a curse and she'll be a witch, and when she was just a child she read enough storybooks to know what happens to bad witches with evil powers. She can fix this. It's _her_ power and _her_ ice. Anna lies moaning on the floor clutching at her chest and Elsa glances out the window at the north mountain like a parent seeking permission or approval. Wind streams off the silent peak, carrying ice and snow away from the rocky pinnacle.

Carrying it away.

_I can do this._

Elsa holds a hand up against Anna's chest and closes her eyes. She can feel the ice there in her sister's still-beating heart, can see it with something beyond normal sight. The shards pulsate with a beautiful blue glow, clear as day, and Elsa pushes with her mind the same way she pushes snowflakes around with the air.

Anna cries out in pain, eyes as big as dinner plates, but Elsa knows she's doing the right thing, fixing what she broke, and she keeps going. She can feel the ice sliding but it's too slow and too hard. In seconds the little princess is gasping for air, feeling more tired than after anything she's ever done. Elsa's breath heaves in her tiny throat as she tries to hold down the black panic that's filling her lungs, and her eyes go out of the window towards the north mountain. Under the light of the moon the towering stone evidence glows with a pale white light.

_I'll be stronger there, _Elsa thinks, and by the tingling under her skin she knows that she's right.

Their adventures through the castle had taught them well and the secret pathways and disused staircases that Elsa didn't already know about Anna had found and shown her. Elsa knows there's a way down to the stables from the north passages, and she knows the stableman there is a normal adult who'll do anything for her if she asks nicely and bats her eyes.

With all the strength and determination she can muster Elsa picks her shivering little sister up, and starts to walk, leaving behind the cold northern corridor and the remains of their playtime; a small pile of snow on the ground in the shape of a ramp, beautiful snowflakes that glitter in the pre-dawn air, and the slowly melting remains of a ragged and misshapen snowman.

* * *

It's an hour before the maid comes in to check on why Elsa is being so quiet in her room, and the another half for the castle to realise that she and Anna aren't playing hide-and-seek. By the time the stableman is questioned Elsa is already halfway up the mountain, and she isn't slowing down. Getting faster, if anything. She had left the horse behind her when the beast had refused to climb another another step, and now she had one arm under Anna and was crying at her to stay awake as the two girls struggled up the mountains.

To Elsa every step she takes to the summit of the peak feels better than the last and every breath of cold air she takes invigorates her. She's only in her skirt and jumper now, wrapping Anna up in the winter coat, shawl and scarves she took escaping the castle. The frigid air everyone in the castle seems so afraid of seems to be pushing at her from behind and helping her up. If Elsa wasn't crying and terrified that her sister was going to die and it would be her fault she would be happier than she had in years.

But Anna is all that fills her head now. Even under the inches of wool she can feel her little sister shivering and Elsa is afraid. She can feel the heat leeching away from her the same way she can see the ice in her heart. Elsa can see a clump of rocks ahead, five huge monoliths and a smaller, thicker one thrusting out of the frozen ground like an unturned hand was clawing from beneath the surface, and she heads there hoping they'll find at least a little shelter. Once glance the way she had come showed she had dragged and carried her sister nearly a third the way up the mountain, and even though the cold air surrounding her is affecting her in ways it doesn't affect others, it had always been Anna who had the boundless energy and stamina, not her. This is as far as she can go.

The huge boulder is large enough that in its lee the wind is reduced from a steady push to barely a breeze, and Elsa collapses beside the thumb of the rocky hand.

_This is enough please please please please-_

"…'Lsa?"

Elsa struggles to get her little sister turned face-up, and is rewarded with a pair of bleary green eyes looking into hers. "Anna!" She hugs her sister as tightly as she can.

"'M sorry I went too fast," Anna mumbles into her ear.

"It wasn't your fault! I was just _stupid_," Elsa cries into her sister's face. "Daddy was right, I'm just a bad girl and _cursed _and_ WEAK!"_

Elsa wails into the dawning sun for only a moment before a gloved hand reaches up and wipes away a tear that immediately freezes. "…Not stupid," she young girl says back to her crying sister. Even with something cold in her chest that makes it hurt when she breathes all she wants to do is reach up to her sister and hug her and tell her how much she loves her, and loves her magic, and she would never call her any of those silly names. She opens her mouth to try but the hand around her heart tightens just a little more and she cries out in pain.

"ANNA!" Elsa lets go of her little sister as she sees the bright points circling closer and closer towards her heart. _Be strong be strong you're a good girl listen to what Anna said she knows better._

Closing her eyes again and concentrating as hard as she can, Elsa reaches down a hand once more, and grabs at the icy shards with her mind the same way she did back at the castle.

This time she feels them. Not sluggish or hard to move like they were back then, Elsa can feel them as if she were actually holding them in her hands and just her mind. She takes a deep breath and moves her hand and with joy and wonder feels the ice move away from her sister's heart and up, up and closer to the surface away the beating core.

She feels the mountain all around her, the cold wind watching from above her whistling around the hand-shaped cluster of rocks as if cheering her on. _I can do this!_

"_ELSA!"_

As suddenly as the triumph is there it vanishes, and it takes all her concentration to stop the ice from falling back down towards Anna's heart as a voice she knows well shouts her name from beyond the rocky circle. It's all she can do to stop the shards before they fall even further and pierce the small beating organ and keep them safe and still all around it as Anna cries out in renewed pain.

"_ELSA WHERE ARE YOU?"_

_Daddy?_

Elsa peeks around the corner of the rock and sees him there, the dawn sun rising further into the sky. Her father's there, just a few meters below the rocky outcropping, huge and imposing on top of one of the giant fjord-horses from the stables. Some palace guards and her mother are there too, looking all around in panic, and Elsa can see that she's been crying. She almost runs out right there and then, wanting her father to pick her up in his warm arms and tell her that everything's going to be safe. But three things stop her; that memory of the fear in his voice when he had seen her powers, the whispering of the wind all around her buffeting her and keeping her standing, and one more thing that makes her gasp when she sees it. At first Elsa had mistaken them for supplies dragged behind the guard's horses, or maybe small rocks the mountain had thrown down into the snow. But then one of them _moves,_ and unfolds to reveal eyes and a huge nose and a mouth that speaks.

"There, your majesty. We had thought she was coming to us, but it seems the mountain called her higher."

Elsa has only read about trolls in her storybooks, but she knows the legends. Even with her own power telling her that magic was a real thing, she had never thought there were other people besides men in the world. She slides back behind the rock, hiding, as the king and queen and their entourage come closer.

The king steps forward, the sharp footfalls of the horse buried in the soft snow of the mountain. "Elsa please out!" The king raises a hand to ward off the wind around him.

The troll hobbles forward on an old stick. "Your majesty, I can feel the princess slipping away us. We must do _something_ now, before all is lost."

_But I'm fine,_ she thinks, before she realises she isn't the princess they're talking about. Elsa turns away from the family that has hunted her down and back to the family she wants so desperately to make better. _If I show them I'm a good girl they won't be mad._ She knows she only has a few seconds, not long enough to remove the shards entirely, but she knows it's just long enough to do _something_.

Taking a deep breath and concentrating again she finds the ice shards again, all twinkling and cold inside Anna. She knows what she can do now, not miles away in a draughty castle but on the slope of the mountain she loves. Instead of pulling the shards out of Anna's body she pushes them around. Sharp edges that could rip blood vessels and tear into flesh turn themselves into soft dust that moves and shifts as the heart beats. Rough snowflakes that could shred Anna's heart into chunks become thin rounded plates that lay around and on top of the organ and Elsa is especially proud of these, protecting the heart from harm instead of _being _that harm.

She works for what feels like minutes but in fact is over in seconds, and when she's done with it the shards of ice that were killing her little sister are protecting her now instead, laying around Anna's heart like armour. Before she's even finished Anna has stopped crying in pain and is now just lying there against the rock, breathing softly.

Elsa is delirious with relief and triumph. _I did it I did it I did it! _She jumps up and down with joy and the mountain dances with her, a flurry of air and snowflakes spinning around her like her own personal snowstorm.

"Elsa, I feel better," Anna whispers. Her eyes stare up into Elsa's with something between love and wonder.

"I fixed it," Elsa replies.

"Knew it," the younger sister says, and reaches up a hand. "I want to see daddy."

Elsa grabs it and ever so careful raises Anna up, and swings the arm over her own, supporting her little sister just like a big sister should.

"Daddy, look!"

Before the guards can stop her the queen is jumping from her horse and running towards her daughters. The king shouts a warning and is a half-second behind as the queen sweeps them both up into a hug that makes Elsa and Anna feel all safe and warm again. "Oh my babies, my sweet babies," the queen breathes quickly.

Then the king arrives. Maybe if the guards and the troll-leader hadn't been with him he might have fallen to his knees and embraced them just the same. But he is a king and his subjects are watching on. "Are you alright? Are you both alright?" he asks, trying to keep the wavering note out of his voice.

Even though barely minutes ago Anna had been closer to the edge than any young girl should ever go, she's the first one who speaks. "I'm fine daddy, Elsa fixed me."

The king turns his eyes from Elsa. She almost shrinks back into her shell then, but the mountain is all around her and she takes strength and courage from it. "What happened Elsa?" he asks.

Elsa stands there as guards come forward and wrap cloaks and woollen scarves around her, and tells him. The expression on her father's face barely changes as she tells him about the pre-dawn playdates the two have always shared, to the small accident that had happened just hours ago, to what she had done to save her little sister's life.

To little Elsa's surprise, when she finishes talking it isn't her father who speaks, but the funny little troll who had appeared at their side.

"Your majesty, this is not over yet," he speaks with a voice like gravel. "The ice surrounding the princess's heart may not take her away but it is still very dangerous. If not removed entirely the curse may wreck a far greater wound than-"

Elsa feels something stab at her own heart when she hears those words. She doesn't really understand what the troll is saying with that worried old voice to her daddy, but she heard _curse_ and she heard _removed_. "NO!"

Her father turns to her, shocked at the sudden anger in the girl's voice, the nearly trips in the snow from the sudden wind that blew up around them. "Elsa…"

"Anna's fine!" _She _had saved her sister's life, and now some rotten old troll wanted her to take away the beautiful thing she had made in her heart? "I saved her!"

The troll speaks again, "Your majesty, little princess, it isn't safe for a young girl to grow up with a heart surrounded by ice. She will grow up yes but that coldness will always be inside her, and she will not be the same person because of it. You must let me take her away to our home to remove-"

"_NO NO NO LIAR LIAR LIAR!"_ Elsa screams, and hears the wind scream with her as it turns into a gale that swirls around the royal family and their entourage. Elsa grabs Anna even tighter and tries to push the king and that horrible tiny rock-man away from her.

"Elsa please…" the king says as he slips on the ice, and feels real fear.

But the girl won't be talked to. She can feel the snow under her feet and the ice all around and the mountain at her back and she knows that she's right. Anna is fine because _her_ power saved her, and now because of a troll she didn't even believe existed yesterday they want to take her sister and best friend away from her. They'll never let Elsa see her again. They'll say it's because of Elsa's curse and take Anna away and she'll spend the rest of her life alone in the castle.

"_I WON'T LET YOU!"_ Elsa cries out angrily at the people who had come to take her sister away from her, and as they look back they see something beyond a tiny girl with clenched fists and teeth, her eyes shining a perfect blue with anger. The snow howls around them now, and it feels as if the force of the entire mountain of ice, rock and snow is ready to fall upon them at Elsa's command.

A hand grabs her and pulls her down and Elsa feels the warmth of her mother enveloping her. "Sssssh, my baby girl." Loving hands gently turned Elsa's chin up until she was looking into big brown eyes. "It's going to be alright."

The king hesitates, torn between the daughters he loves so much and the worry that's gnawed at his heart all the years since he had forced himself to acknowledge that his oldest, the crown princess of Arendelle, had a power that was beyond the comprehension of mere humans. Elsa will always be his child and he will _always_ love her. But sometimes he looks into those blue eyes, can see the ice and snow within, and is afraid.

Eventually, the father wins out over the ruler, the heart wins out over the head. The king's love of his daughter overrules his fear of the power within her, and in that final moment when he turns to the troll leader and says "_I am sorry, but Elsa and Anna must come home with us together"_ the pebble that began with a small girl looking at a mountain and being entranced is lost among a thousand others like it as the avalanche begins to accelerate, bearing it's payload of ice and snow and rock to smash apart anything in its way.

Elsa sits happily on the sled, the wind around them dying down to little more than a breeze as together the royal family and their escorts head back down the mountain towards the castle. Anna is sat next to her, still wrapped up against the cold but awake and talking just like they were before the accident in the north corridor. Elsa had looked back once as they had begun the ride back to the kingdom below, and had seen the troll leader looking at them sadly, before turning around and vanishing into wherever on the mountain he lived. In a most un-princess-like move she sticks out her tongue and blows a raspberry after him. Good riddance. Anna was her sister and her best friend in the whole world, and nobody was going to take her away.

"Hey Elsa?" Anna says, half-asleep from fatigue, both of them wrapped together in the same woollen capes. The redhead feels warm again, just like she should.

"Anna?"

"I knew you'd save me," the redhead says happily looking at her sister with a smile.

Elsa feels like her grin might be big enough to remove the top of her head. She wants to burst with happiness, to paint the whole town white with beautiful snow. She knows she can do it now, her fear of the power within her wiped away by the miracle that wraps around Anna's heart, keeping her safe. She doesn't reply, only snuggles against her more, and together the two happy sisters watch the scenery as they leave the mountain, and go home.

Only Elsa looks back, but not in anger or fear. Now she knows Arendelle castle isn't enough for her, even though she's the crown princess and it will be hers eventually. She'll be back to the peak one day, when she's older and stronger, to claim her _real_ throne.

The avalanche is picking up speed.

Not all the power in the world can stop it now.

End of Prologue

* * *

_Jeez that was a bit longer than the last one. I promised a real author's note so here it is._

_As I said before this fic was inspired by the Dark!AU that the very talented and friendly patronustrip (dot tumblr dot com) and her friends have made over on tumblr. It grabbed me and I thought about writing a short little ficlet there too, but then I started wondering how you would get to that cold and dark universe from the movie characters we know and love. Therefore the main conceits in this little story are as follows:_

_One: Instead of relying on the trolls to save Anna, Elsa does so herself, due to growing up with a greater affinity for the cold than in the regular world. She's never crippled by fear of her powers, but she resents that the rest of the world – even her own father – think that she's cursed. To Dark!Elsa there's no greater power in Arendelle than the mountain she lives by, and the two of them share many similar qualities…_

_Two: When Anna is injured by Elsa the ice goes to her heart instead of her head. When Elsa saves her to prove to herself and her father that her powers aren't a curse, the ice isn't removed but changed to protect Anna instead, because it's the job of older sisters to protect their little siblings. If you've read the original Snow Queen (and you should have because it's great!) you'll know what ice in the heart will do to a growing child…_

_Obviously this is patronustrip's world and I'm just playing in it, therefore eventually this little prequel will be Elsanna. But that is the final destination more than it is the journey here, and probably won't pop up anytime soon. Oh there'll be fluff and some angst and drama, but the true M-rated stuff is probably a while away._

_Reviews, questions, feedback and comments are all especially welcome (_especially_ criticism in fact, because how else do we learn?). A beta reader too would be especially welcome because I have a strange and debilitating illness called Icantspotmyownspellingandgrammarmistakes-iosis._

_God even the author note was longer than I had anticipated. Whatever, I'm done, peace out. Hope you enjoy the ride friends._

_~Cobray._


	3. Gilded Bars

_We'll protect her. She can learn to control it. I'm sure._

"I don't believe it."

Her father and mother watch wide-eyed, staring up into the glittering air of the ballroom as Elsa dances. She's free, she's content, she feels so light she could jump into the air and fly, except that was one of the first things she tried and even if she coats her arms in sheets of thin ice and jumps from the second-floor bannisters she's still too heavy.

"I knew she had powers but this…"

Her parents watch as their daughters play in the snow, a scene no different from the one a thousand families do every winter. But they're not outside in one of Arendelle's parks, they're inside the main ballroom of the castle, and the snow and ice that coats every surface of the large ballroom didn't come from the sky, it came from their own firstborn. It's like the north wind picked up the tonnes of snow that lay outside the castle gates and dumped them directly into the ballroom. Elsa and Anna are knee-deep in it, and the queen needed a warm coat to stay there.

Anna dances through the snow, smashing into animal-shaped snowbanks and giving adorable roars like a conquering lion. Elsa waves a hand like a sculptor shaping clay and more pop up, tiny animals that twist and move like they're alive.

"Maybe Elsa made the right decision," queen Idunn whispers to her husband, grasping his hand at his side. "Look how happy they are."

The king looks down as his daughters play in the magical wonderland and can't help but smile. One week ago – when it feels like he came so close to losing them both – feels like an eternity ago. He catches Elsa's eye and his oldest beams and waves up at him before suddenly she's covered in puffy white down, and Anna is laughing with another snowball already in her hand.

Elsa and Anna look up at their parents, teal and blue eyes shining up at them. "Daddy, mommy, come play!"

"Maybe you're right," the king whispers. He takes his wife's hand. "Shall we?"

Together they descend the staircase as the king takes the memories of that awful week and puts them out of his head. He has his health and his kingdom and his daughters, and as the latter dance around him throwing snowballs at each other, delirious with happiness, he needs nothing else.

* * *

_Until then, we'll lock the gates…_

"It's just for our own protection."

The king and Elsa watch as the main gate swings slowly shut, his arm on her shoulder. Elsa can see people walking through their everyday lives outside, barely giving them a glance. She's not old enough to understand the full ramifications of those huge oaken slabs latching during the day, but she's old enough to know that her father is holding onto her more closely than he normally does, and old enough to know that something is just a little bit wrong. In the courtyard the temperature drops ever so slightly, and the girl's breath mists in the air.

The king can feel it too. "Elsa, are you alright?"

"Are we shutting them forever?" Elsa asks with just a little tremor in her voice. She and Anna used to run through the markets past the moat and bridge, playing tag and hide-and-go-seek with the children of the market vendors. Sometimes they'd get gifts, apples or candied treats from the old red-faced men and women who manned them.

"May…only for a little while," the king lies, because he doesn't know. He _does_ know that even though Arendelle isn't the most devout of kingdoms that the citizens still throw salt over their shoulders when they spill it at table, and every midwife has an iron horseshoe on the birthing bed to ward off changelings. The castle is his domain and he is _the king_, and so far all those who know his daughter as something more than human have been extremely loyal to him (knowing Elsa and Anna probably help with this; no-one could meet them and not love them), but he still tightens up in fear some days. He has nightmares about mobs and pitchforks, and stakes and fire. "Only for a little while."

"Elsa, daddy!"

Agdar watches as Elsa's eyes light up at the sound of her sister's voice. She turns and runs back, all thoughts of the closing doors forgotten, thank God.

"Look what I found!" Anna says as she runs toward them both. She looks like a little flower, all dressed in queen and her red hair bouncing wildly, the white streak running through it the only physical reminder now of the accident on the mountains that had almost claimed her life. Her hands are cupped in front of her, and the king sighs. Just one more piece to add to her collection of knick-knacks. When they had returned from the north mountain the king had momentarily entertained the idea that such a traumatic experience might temper his youngest, would bring her in line just a little bit. A forlorn hope.

"What is it what is it?" Elsa exclaims excitedly, not a princess now but just a young girl like any other.

Anna opens her hands and Elsa's eyes open wide as dinner plates. "Daddy come see!"

The king smiles and walks over, going down on one knee between his daughters. "What have you got…there." He trails off when he sees what Anna is holding. This time it isn't a huge shining conker, or a pretty flower or a smooth coloured rock. In her hands a small baby bird shakes gently and _meeps_ weakly as it flaps around. It's fluffy and adorable and he can see why she wanted it but… "Anna where did you find this?" he asks, staring down at the chick as it flaps with an open beak.

"The oak!"

She must mean the oak by the pond. The oak that's at least a hundred feet tall if it's an inch. His stomach churns as he imagines her tiny hands trying to grasp at the huge branches. _Not now._ "Darling, you shouldn't have," he says, and doesn't mean it like she's just given him an over-expensive gift.

"What's wrong daddy?" Anna asks, hearing the tone of his voice and suddenly knowing that she's done something wrong.

As gently as he can the king takes the small dying bird into his own gloved hands. "Birds can't leave the nest when they're so young Anna. They…"

_That's it._

"They need to stay with their parents until they're strong enough to live on their own," he says, trying to put meaning into every word. "They're too weak to survive so young."

Both his daughters are looking at him wide-eyed now. "Is the birdy going to be okay?" Anna asks, one foot twisting around in the cobblestoned floor.

_Elsa will know if you lie._ "I'm sorry darling."

Instantly Anna's eyes fill up with shining blue tears. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean it!"

Like she's reading his mind Elsa gently takes the small, now-still chick from her father, and the king embraces his youngest in a huge, warm hug. "There, there, little one, you weren't to know."

"I…I can look after it until it's older!"

But it's already too late. Elsa joins her father and Anna's cries turn to low sniffles as her father and older sister surround her in love and warmth.

Elsa is the first to move away. She grabs Anna by the hand. "Let's bury it under the oak."

Anna wipes tears away from her eyes and nods, trying to be strong and brave like her older sister who she idolises. "Okay…"

The king watches as the two stride off, hand-in-hand, to the castle pond.

_Maybe it will be a good lesson for them,_ he thinks, but another part of himself knows that his words weren't for them but for himself. Justification.

_All birds leave the nest someday. You're a fool if you think you can protect them forever._

He knows his daughters, knows that one day they'll fly higher and brighter than he ever will. But for now they're his little chicks and he'll do anything to protect them, even if it means keeping them in a cage.

The fact that the cage is made of gold is little comfort.

* * *

_We'll reduce the staff…_

It had been building for months, and they had both agreed that it was better to lance a boil when it was small than to leave it and just hope that it didn't turn into something rotten. They had chosen their staff superbly, every single servant in Arendelle castle had undergone interviews and investigations when they had been hired before either child had been born, but some questions had simply never been accounted for, and how could they have been?

_How would you react if, for example, the crown princess were to develop powers beyond those of mere mortals?_

_Well your majesty I…_

Her husband had been insistent and Idunn had eventually acquiesced. She knew she was perhaps a little more soft-hearted than other royalty she had entertained in the castle; dukes and barons and counts who treated their staff like tools to be used and discarded. But even so she was under no illusions that the staff were family, or close confidants, or anything other than well-paid servants. If the choice was between the safety and happiness of their children and the livelihood of the chamber-maids and men-at-arms then there was simply no contest.

The head butler Kai and the chief maid Gerda had listened quietly to their majesties, then bowed and curtsied and left the private study, and the machinery and hierarchy that operated 'downstairs' to keep the castle in running order had started to move. The treasury doors had been levered open bare inches (not even that much, Arendelle was a rich country) to ensure that the departing servants would neither starve nor talk, letters of recommendation had been written, and within days the matter had been settled. To the king and queen this had been more than enough. All those who remained in Arendelle castle now had loyalty beyond question, and if this meant that some rooms of their home had needed to have dust-covers thrown over them, or that some wings remained unlit at night, this was a small sacrifice to pay. In the way of those that deal with the big problems though, they had forgotten the smaller ones.

Idunn watched from the window as Ida departed through the river-door. Not even for this would they use the huge main gates that led to the bridge. Both of them had agreed they would only re-open when the problem-

_She is your daughter._

-when Elsa had gained full mastery of her abilities. The current situation was not helping this, however. Was not helping either of them.

"But _why_ does Ida have to leave?" Anna wailed into her mother's skirts.

_Because Ida has been hanging a crucifix on her door to ward off evil, and because she won't clean in Elsa rooms even when Gerda orders her to,_ Idunn didn't say. "Because her family are sick, and she needs to go and be with them," she tried instead, hoping Anna won't notice that an awful lot of the castle servants seemed to suddenly have sick families that required their attention.

"I don't want her to go, make her come back!" Anna almost shouts.

"Anna!"

The anger is gone almost as fast as it had appeared. "Sorry."

The queens kept looking at Anna's eyes though, and could still see that tiny sliver of resentment buried there underneath the sadness at her favourite maid leaving. She's learned to recognise it now, had seen it a few times when Anna had been upset. She was still a very young girl and as vulnerable to temper tantrums and crying fits as any other girl her age but ever since…

_Ever since that horrible night._

Ever since that night on the mountain the little spark had seemed to lodge there just a little deeper, and show no signs of stopping even as her little girl grew up. Whether it was anger at whatever was making her upset or anger at herself (after the incident with the baby bird Anna hadn't spoken for hours until the queen had finally coaxed it out of her with the promise of chocolate and heard _I'm a stupid girl)_ it was there.

Idunn swept her youngest into her arms. "Don't worry sweet, they'll be back some day." She meant it too, she had ordered Kai to keep records. She heard the _creak_ of the door opening to reveal Kai and Gerda standing in the corridor outside. She pushed Anna away until mother and daughter were looking each other in the eye. "Remember love, no matter who comes or goes here, your father and I will _always_ love you."

"And Elsa too," Anna said, and it wasn't a question. She knew other families had had trouble with bickering siblings but no such thing had happened in Arendelle. If there was one single good thing that had come from the Incident, it was that the strong bond between Anna and Elsa had become unbreakable iron. The queen's heart could have burst from love of her two daughters.

"And Elsa too. Now run along, it's time for you to go and learn." Like a candle being blown out, gooey adorable Anna was replaced by puffy-cheeked obstinate Anna. Idunn held a finger to her lips before she could even say a word. "Ah ah, you must learn."

Even through the little red spark Anna knew this was a battle she wasn't going to win. She turned and stomped off from the room, where Gerda was waiting with a smile and a hand to lead Anna to her first tutors. Her daughter turned and waved as she walked off, and the queen gave a small smile back.

"Your majesty," Kai said, and waited. Kai (no last name known or asked for) was a blessing. If royalty were the rocks that supported a kingdom, the head butler was the one who made sure that those rocks remained firm and strong.

"Kai. Is everything dealt with?"

"Just so your majesty," the man replied smoothly, holding a small sheet of paper in his hands. "All those who remain within the castle are beyond question."

"Was there any trouble?" the queen asked. She kept thinking about gossiping servant girls walking through the market, talking where they shouldn't. Rumour was a powerful force in any kingdom.

"Minor quibbles, ma'am. An errant chamber-maid who disagreed with the terms of her severance, and one of the men-at-arms who enjoyed his authority perhaps a little much."

"Have you…"

"The money for the girl was insignificant in the scheme of things, and the guard was permitted to keep his horse and sword. All matters are dealt with, your majesty."

She didn't like trouble. A few small pittances she'd gladly pay to keep the fuss down to a minimum. She closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. "Good…good."

"Your majesty?"

"Yes, Kai?"

"If I may exceed my position some small amount?"

Queen Idunn blinked in surprise. Decades of loyal service, both to her and her parents before her, and Kai had never been anything other than the perfect servant, unquestioning. Even when he had been younger, when Idunn herself was a girl and still courting the king, Kai had seemed imposing. Like a rock. "You have permission," she said, and waited.

"Many of the staff who remain are childless your majesty," Kai said, back still as straight as a ramrod but some touch of…softness…in his voice? Impossible. Not from Kai. "Many of them are loyal to you _precisely because_ of this. Whether due to being unable to or for other reasons, little Elsa and Anna _are_ their children. Not a soul remains in this castle that would not lay down their lives for you and yours were they asked, and not because they are being paid."

The queen remembered; Kai was unmarried, or at least married to his job. She felt the urge to ask why but felt in her heart that to do so would be to open up some small gulf between them, and all her life Kai had been there.

"Thank you Kai," she settled for. It wasn't enough, but…

"I will check on the tutors, to make sure Anna arrived at his classroom." Something he had had to do more than once now.

The head butler left, vanishing into the castle as silent as a ghost.

* * *

_We will limit her contact with people and keep her powers hidden from everyone..._

"But _whyyyyyyy?_"

"Because…because not everyone thinks the same way your mother and I do."

Somehow it was quickly turning into was the hardest conversation the king had ever had.

Elsa stood there in the courtyard pouting. Both his daughters in fact. Between their expressions, and snow behind them, and the misshapen raggedy snowman between them, the king couldn't help but feel a little ridiculous.

_I have sparred with kings and barons, watched empires begin to fragment and others rise up, and helped start my kingdom down the path of an industrial revolution. Yet I am unable to convince my small daughter why she cannot make blizzards in summer just to 'cool down a little'. _

_Truly a more monstrous task than the others put together,_ the queen had laughed and replied.

"Who cares what they think?" Elsa muttered.

"Yeah!" Anna agreed with her older sister, punching the air but instead missing and hitting the snowman beside her, whose head fell off. "Sorry Olaf!"

"Elsa please listen to me."

But he couldn't manage it. He simply couldn't, there was no magic word, and no argument besides one he could think of to make her listen to him and understand why he was worried. That one argument was one he was unwilling to use. Elsa simply _was not afraid_ of her own power, and didn't see why anyone else should be either.

Thank God he had closed the gates.

"Maybe if we built them all snowmen?" Anna suggested. "Everyone loves snowmen!" She grabbed 'Olaf's' twig-hands and spun it around, whereupon it promptly fell to pieces that flew into the walls. "Oops."

The king heard a giggle from above him and shot a look at the queen. _My dear you are not helping._ "People are afraid of…of new things Elsa," he said, running a hand down her cheek. She was cool to the touch. _And you are so very new._ "And when they are afraid some people attack what they fear."

"Noooo!"

"Yes," the king said. "So if-"

Anna jumped between the king and Elsa and crossed her arms. "I'll potect her!"

"Protect," Elsa hissed, ever the older daughter.

"Protect her!" Anna repeated, and crossed her arms in front of her.

The king looked at them both and smiled. "We have men-at-arms and knights who do that for us love."

"Then I'll be a knight," Anna said, unwilling to admit defeat. "I'll be the bestest, bravest, strongest, bestest-er knight in Arendelle!"

"You said 'bestest' twice, nearly," king Agdar teased her, flicking her nose with a finger.

"Because I really mean it," Anna replied, and stuck out her tongue.

"See!" Elsa said, as if that finished the argument.

The king sighed. He wanted to agree. He wanted to throw open the castle gates again and let his daughters run free in the markets like they had used to. Wanted to call back the old staff and fill the castle with light and air again. But he couldn't risk it. Not when all around him was snow and ice. The years before the Incident and the scant month after had taught him two things; that his daughter's power was truly beautiful, and that it was a terrible beauty. Especially in Arendelle. In the spring the sun melted snow and destabilised the ice that had gathered all winter, causing avalanches that could remove whole forests and logging camps. In winter the winds coming through the valley and past the mountain caused chills that could drop the temperature in seconds low enough to cause frostbite.

And the stories…Arendelle was a Christian nation, but old ways die hard, or turn from religion into myth and then into fable. Old women still read the tales of the _Edda_ from memory to their children at night to scare them into obedience. The king still remembered his own nurse who had told him stories about the kobolds and dwarves, and the trickster god Loki, or when he had done something particularly bad the stories of how the world would end; in _ice_.

He wouldn't risk it.

"Elsa."

"I…yes father?" she asked, argument cut off by the expression on his face.

"You are forbidden to show your magic to anyone outside of this castle. Do you understand me?"

It took minutes, and tears, and a few more harsh words than he would have liked, but eventually…

"I promise father."

The king ruffled his daughter's hair. "You'll understand when you're older," he said like every father for generations had said to their children. Unlike those fathers however, in this he was mistaken.

Elsa understood _now._

She just wasn't _happy_ about it.

* * *

"Elsaaaaaa?"

"Go away Anna."

"Do you want to build a snowman?"

"No."

For a minute Elsa thought that it had worked as her little sister stayed quiet, then…

"AAAAAH!"

Elsa cried out as Anna reached into the bed and grabbed her arm and _pulled_ and Elsa had no choice but to follow it and was pulled out of the bed and off its edge. Luckily something soft was underneath her to break her fall.

"Owwww…"

"Sorry, sorry!" Elsa said as she climbed off of Anna and the two disentangled themselves.

"'M okay." Anna shook her head and grabbed Elsa's hand. "C'mon!"

"Anna I'm not supposed to…" Elsa started weakly, but she didn't resist very hard as Anna led her not towards the grand ballroom where they had always played, but elsewhere, into the dark parts of the castle that had been extinguished and shut down when the servants had left.

"Shhhh!" Anna whispered over-dramatically, looking out from the corner left and right like one of the thief-heroes in their storybooks.

"Anna we're not allowed!" Elsa hissed.

Anna ignored her, still gripping onto her hand. It felt as hot as fire.

Anna pushed open the door. "Here!"

Elsa knew it immediately, even in the dark of midnight and with the lamps off. She gasped and ran to the centre of the long corridor. The moon was dark but if she squinted out of the huge glass windows she could just barely see the huge craggy outline of the mountain, as the two sisters looked out of the north corridor.

"Now we can play in all the snow we want!"

"Daddy really says we're not supposed to…" Elsa said, caught halfway between wanting to play with her little sister so very badly, and wanting to obey her father who she loved more than anyone in the world. She sighed and waved a hand, and felt the power flow through her and out of her, and the north corridor was a whirling blizzard

Anna stuck her tongue out and blew a raspberry at her. "Daddy's silly and wrong. If anyone tries to stop you making magic I'll…I'll stop them back!" Tongue still stuck out in fierce concentration, Anna reached into her dress and brought out…

Elsa gasped and ran towards her sister, arms out. "Anna be careful!"

The tiny redhead waved the butter-knife around as she climbed on top of a snowy hillock. "I'm Anna of Arendelle, the greatest knight ever!" She immediately sank to her waist in it, a tiny little chest and arms poking out of a snowy skirt. "When I'm older," she conceded.

Elsa laughed, and inspiration struck. "Oh no, help me!" She waved and snowmen appeared around her, two, four, a half-dozen, all with comical horns and sharp arms.

"I'll save you princess!" Anna shouted, and leapt at them, tiny knife held out. The second the metal touched the cold snow Elsa laughed and the snowman burst into a million snowflakes that whirled around the pair.

"My hero!" Elsa swooned, falling backwards into the remains of the 'defeated' snowmen beneath her.

Anna laughed and jumped into the same mess and suddenly the room was all whirling, beautiful snowflakes and tangled princesses. All thoughts about what their father had said that afternoon were banished from Elsa's head as she played with her little sister – and newly self-proclaimed protector – in her own little world, nothing to disturb them, and the mountain watching over them.

* * *

The king sighed in the huge double-bed he shared with his wife, the warmth of her back pressing against him. The bed was an old heirloom and half-useless, because by the time they were half-asleep they were already curled around each other. "Do you think they're play-"

"Almost certainly," Idunn replied before he could even finish speaking.

"I'm just so worried about them both," Agdar said, free to voice his fears where no servants would dare linger to overhear. "I wish I could make them understand."

The queen twisted until they were facing each other. "They can understand when they're older. For now let them have each other. They have so little else." She put a finger against her husband's lips to stop him arguing. "This castle is their world now. The least we can do is make it a happy one."

"I keep having the same nightmare."

"You think I don't?" the queen asked. Pitchforks and pyres. Stakes and torches. "They're strong girls, love."

"Anna certainly is. She said she wanted to be a knight today."

The queen giggled, a musical note in the air that made the king happy every time he heard it. "A shining knight with a horse and a sword, just like in the storybooks."

"I swear she gets the wrong idea from those books," Agdar grumbled.

"Can you really imagine little Anna as a doting princess?" Idunn teased her husband.

The king sighed. "I really can't, not either of them." He smiled. "Maybe you should teach them to be."

"I was never doting."

"And I was never a knight."

"You were a knight to me," the queen whispered, running a hand down her husband's face.

"All I ever fought were the treasury's figures and that damnnable Weselton man."

"Quite the struggle that must have been."

"If financial book-keeping and diplomats are all our daughters ever have to fight, I'll be a happy man."

"Our wonderful daughters," the queen whispered, and seconds later was asleep, safe and secure with her husband while in the northern corridor their daughters danced and laughed, not a care in the world for anything but each other.


	4. Jötunnmǫgr

Like a stray and homeless dog following a man with food in his hands, in the hope that some crumbs might drop to the ground or the miracle the man might be kind and hand a chunk to him, the small boy trails after the ice-miners. Brave enough to follow them as they make the slow trek up into the cold mountain but not brave enough to walk alongside them, the boy walks in the muddy path gouged by the older men's boots, pushed along by the bravery (or, if you're unkind, ignorance) of those too young to know better, and by a slobbery wet tongue that licks at him when he falters.

"Shhhh," little Kristoff whispers at Sven, as in front of the pair the ice-miners stride up the mountain in what look to the five year-old like ten-league shoes. All around them the mountainside is still, the only things to disturb the sleeping giant the men climbing it; a line of pale lights making the same old jokes and talking about the same old things. When Kristoff is older and braver he'll know that they laugh and joke so loudly to ward off the night, and the animals and old ghost stories that walk it. For now though the adults ahead of him are his idols; what he intends to become when he's a real man, and little Kristoff with only a tiny sled and a pet reindeer to his name needs an idol so very badly.

The men step at the edge of the lake and get on their knees for the prayers to Miner Erhard and Old Olaf, and the man at the end of the line can hear the scuffling and faint childish _ooowww_ as Kristoff does the same. Maybe it's just a little cruel or heartless, but to the majority of the haggard and weary old men – most of whom worry about whether they'll be able to afford the wood to hear their homes in winter, or buy meat and fruit more than once a week – he's a good-luck charm, their own little Askeladden, and in a profession so reliant on good luck they hoard every scrap of it they can find.

The prayers to old saints done, the first man steps one hobnailed boot onto the surface of the lake, and starts the old chant. Saws and pick-axes and forceps glint in the moonlight as the midnight miners start their work.

_BORN of cold and WIN-ter air…_

* * *

"A good night."

"They're all good nights this deep in the season. Wait 'till summer, when the lake's thin enough to put a foot through."

The sleds, piled high with the glittering bricks that will make them enough money to survive the melting summer months, the ice-miners begin the slow trek back down the mountain before the sun can rise for another day and start chipping away at their haul. Huge blocks of ice will sit in basements and cheap ice-houses for weeks or months, packed with straw and sawdust, until the year rolls around again and the merchants, nobles, visiting traders and those willing to pay will want something to cool down. Backbreaking labour and enough risk for a dozen other jobs (merchants, for example never had to worry that picking up one last bun from their cart would send a thousand tons of wood and bread through their fat skulls), but worth good money.

They're practical and hard-headed men, each of which has seen at least one of his friends swallowed by the mountain, so when the first snowflakes of the storm come down gentler than a kiss they don't shrug it off as a little flurry that will pass by in a minute, or bunker down and wait 'till it passes. As one, they tighten the drawstrings around their clothes, pull their hats tighter down over their heads, and turn the pace from a steady walk they could keep up for days into a jog they can do only for minutes. When the north mountain rises and shakes the dust from its coat, it's wise not to be a flea on her back.

To their credit it's also because of those ghosts that haunt their memories that it is only a minute or two before one ice-miner turns to another and asks:

"Where's Kristoff?"

* * *

Kristoff loves ice.

Not as a source of income or as a valued profession, but simply for the thing itself. He loves the lakes when the group first reaches them, and he can look out and in child-sized eyes see a perfect still ocean stretched out before him, like a giant untouched jewel dropped into the earth and left to be discovered. He loves the way the stars and moonlight pour into it and bounce around inside and throw it back out in a thousand beams and glows, endlessly reflecting light as the sleds jostle and waver down the mountainside. Kristoff has his own tiny sled now, a tiny little thing made by one of the miners in a fit of drunken sentimentality, and now that Sven is big enough he pulls it behind the other bigger sleds. His own little cubes of ice he drags back down the mountain aren't stored like the others, muddied by straw or dirtied and roughened by sawdust. He keeps them on the ground outside the window of his room, a good-luck charm of his own he can look at any time he wants to look at something beautiful, or to forget.

Kristoff is lost in his own imagination, thinking he can almost feel the light from the ice behind him bouncing from his little coat, and that's why he doesn't realise what the small snowfall on his head means, and that's why he falls behind the rest of the ice-miners, and that's why he's the only one who sees the girl.

Or more accurately Sven sees it, and raises the alarm.

"What is it buddy?" Kristoff asks as he looks in the direction Sven is honking in. He shivers and clutches his coat around himself and in the way of all small children everywhere, at every point in history, he tries to look out into the darkness and at the same time not look at all, in case he should see something. Even at such a young age though Sven is already throwing off the fears that it might take other, more coddled children years to break free of, and so when he looks, he sees:

It's barely anything, little more than a flask of red and blue. But it's clothing, and people wear clothing, and finally Kristoff's daydreams are thrown out of his little skull and he realises he's alone in the mountain and what started as a light snowfall is quickly turning into something more.

_Oh man I'm gonna get in troubllllle._ "C'mon Sven!" Kristoff says, and runs after the little wavering scraps of cloth that he thinks are the ice-miners he's meant to be following.

People carry good-luck charms into dangerous places thinking they'll bring them safety. Nobody ever really wonders whether being carried into mortal danger is lucky for the charm or not.

* * *

It's ten minutes later and Kristoff is worried now, _really_ worried, like he remembers being back in the Bad Days he tries to keep out of his skull. The snowflakes that turned into a breeze are turning into a real wind now, and somehow the people he's running desperately to catch up with aren't getting any closer. Every time he gets a little bit closer, the figures get a little bit bigger, the storm picks up even more, and he's forced to slow down. Sven's honking is even more insistent and he can see the worry in his pet's eyes, but Kristoff knows that sometimes it's better to be committed to a course than to change half-way through. When you're on a crackling frozen lake with mist all around you and you can't see the shore, it's better to just start walking away from the sound regardless of whether it's taking you farther out, than to keep changing directions in the middle and let the cracks find your feet.

Kristoff is young and stubborn and not a little bone-headed, but he's strong for his age. He keeps walking, dragging his afraid but loyal reindeer alongside behind him. The storm – and it really is a storm now – rages around him, and he's losing sight of the ghosts ahead.

"_HEY!" _he bellows as loud as he can, waving his arms up and down as if the person ahead of him has eyes in the back of their head. Whoever they are they haven't stopped or turned even once since he found them, just kept walking endlessly. The wind picks up his words effortlessly and throws them away into nothing. Kristoff shivers. The world is white around him, all sense of direction lost except the ghost.

The breath is torn from his body now, every step harder and harder as he unknowingly climbs the mountain he's trying to escape and is now trying to make him into one more feature of its endless hunger. Kristoff trips, and only hands grasping at Sven's fur stop him from falling into the snow, now up to his boots.

"Boy."

He doesn't know what a hallucination is but he knows the voice isn't real. Even though sometimes he likes to move Sven's mouth up and down and pretend his pet/friend is really talking he knows it isn't him either.

"Boy,"

He feels a sharp pain in his side, and that does what a voice can't. That, and the sudden feeling of…warmth?

"Whhhhuuuuh?" is all he can manage as he straightens up and looks around the storm, which seems to be…receding?

"Sire, we cannot leave this child here," the low voice rumbles, and Kristoff looks _down_ instead of around.

"Abbbbluh?" is the best he manages at small rocky beady-eyed figure staring up at him. "_Ow!"_ He hops on one leg when a second troll clips him by the ear and his stubbornness overrides his cold. "Hey!"

"Show a little respect to your elders, young'un," a voice that screams _motherly_ barks.

"Pabbie, we can't delay," a third voice says from much, _much_ further up than the troll did. "Give the boy to the guards, we press on," it continues, and Kristoff cranes his neck upwards to see…

The man sitting on the back of the huge black fjord horse is what the ice-miners would have called _nobby_, he doesn't doubt for a single second, and so is the woman standing next to him. He's seen them in the town, walking around picking things from the stores, so rich they don't even have to pay right there on the spot (Kristoff had tried buying an apple 'on credit' once and had only avoided a hiding by running faster than the fat merchant he'd suggested it to).

In the storm that's died down to a strong wind though he's never seen nobility who looked as scared as these two do.

The man looks down from the old troll (and Kristoff is getting warm enough that a Real Live Troll is fast becoming A Thing) to him. "Boy, have you seen anyone on this mountain tonight?"

Kristoff knows he should take his hat off and show respect but, well, he's cold. "Only one sir, headed…" he turns and points, and realises he's pointing _up_ the mountain. All this time he's been walking back the way he came, towards the summit, not down to the house he shares with the other ice-miners and their warm little fire and fresh carrots.

_You'd have followed that ghost up and to your death all alone,_ a little voice in his head tells him, and then all at once the bravery leaves what is, in the end, still a small child, and Kristoff starts crying.

"There there," the old mother-troll says, and Kristoff and Sven are enveloped together in a big warm mossy hug. "You're both alright now."

The king and the troll he called 'Pabbie' are exchanging words now. Something about _in time_ and _magic storm,_ but Kristoff can't hear and doesn't care because it's the first hug he's shared with another person since…since ever.

* * *

Tears dried out now and a huge blanket that feels like it's made out of a hundred pounds off moss wrapped around his shoulders, Kristoff rides behind one of the guards on the huge horse. He's stayed quiet now, ever since he realised who it is he's been riding with.

_The king and queen!_

All the royalty Kristoff knows are from the old miner's stories, books being not really the kind of thing ice-miners bought for their barracks. Generally they were minor characters, generally there as bit-parts that commanded the brave knight to go off and slay the ice-trolls threatening the kingdom, or petty tyrants for Akeladd to run rings around while he stole a magic cup or dagger. He knew _in a general_ sense that Arendelle was ruled by a king and queen but that knowledge had as much to do with his day-to-day life as the silk shirts some of the miners bought in summer; pretty to look at and nice to feel maybe, but not useful for _real_ work.

So he's surprised when it's the king and queen, not the guards, who break trail as they climb the increasingly rocky mountainside. A small hand points and Kristoff follows it to spot the small path sandwiched between two huge boulders, carving a path away from the big snowbanks they're walking up. For a second he can see something green there.

"That's _our_ home."

"Isn't it cold up here?" he asks the old mother-troll, who hasn't really left their side since they were found.

"Oh my no laddy," she almost sings back, reminding Kristoff of…something. "With all the steam and the hot rocks in there it's just as warm and toasty as your own mother's house is!"

"I don't have a mother," Kristoff replies without thinking, and that's the end of _that_ conversation as the troll woman looks down at him with pity and horror. He clutches the huge mossy blanket closer to him.

"The wind's picking up," the king says.

"We are almost upon them your majesty," Pabby replies. "We must hurry."

* * *

They pull to a stop in the middle of a raging storm. Without asking Kristoff jumps down from the saddle and lifts the huge mossy blanket up to let Sven snuggle under it. Kristoff can't remember when he got Sven, or even if he was given Sven at all. The small reindeer could have just followed him home one day for all he remembers. Sven is his best friend in the world though and he'll gladly go a little cold to make sure Sven isn't shivering.

"Stay here Kristoff," the troll he's learned is called Bulda whispers. "While we and his majesty deal with this."

Sven gives a mournful honk as she moves up away from them and is almost instantly swallowed by the white wall that swirls around them. "What do you think buddy?" Kristoff asks.

_Honk_, is what is actually said, but what Kristoff hears is _I wanna know!_

"Me too." Kristoff spares a glance around him at the king's escort. Like the ice-miners; hard-bitten men chosen for the strength of their arms and iron in their hearts, and maybe not for the quickness of their minds. "Let's go!"

"HEY!"

But Kristoff is too quick, and the guards that have to scramble down from their huge horses are all wearing riding gear instead of something actually appropriate for the mountain, and they haven't spent all the time that Kristoff has walking through snow. Compared to them the small boy practically skips through the heavy blizzard, and he's out of their sight in seconds, hidden behind…

"Child what did I _tell_ you?" Bulda cracks at him. But the child in question isn't listening, because he's looking past the bulk of the trolls and up towards the king and queen, and…

The stones rise behind them, four fingers of granite and a thumb that thrust into the air, and on the snow-covered 'palm' he sees her.

_The ghost._

In a blue dress that barely looks thick enough to protect her from a stiff breeze, let alone the arctic storm raging around her, the girl stands feet apart planted firmly in the snow. In front of and facing away from him the king is gesturing (pleading? A king? Impossible) with his hands up, palms forward like he's trying to placate her. Kristoff feels a gust of wind even stronger than before slap him, and when he recovers and looks back up he imagines for a second the girl is looking straight down at him, and he can see the most incredible blue eyes he's ever seen in his life. But the moment passes and he realises the girl isn't even aware of him, she's shouting at the king and trying to…she's trying to protect something? There's a rough bundle of red and green by one of the 'fingers' and the blue-eyed ghost is switching between holding it and talking with the ever-closer king.

"Come away child!"

A warm and rough hand grabs him, and he and Sven are hoisted away.

"That meeting isn't for the likes of us."

He steals a quick glance backwards at the confrontation taking place, and now the ghost is holding up _another_ girl as the king rushes at them, and the expression on the first girl;s face isn't pain or fear anymore; its happiness in the midst of the blizzard. The last thing Kristoff sees before the storm (and is it his tiny imagination or is the storm just a little weaker than it was before) covers them from view is two glowing jewels staring down the mountain, chunks of beautiful, perfect ice locked into the face of someone barely older than he is.

Kristoff loves ice.

* * *

"Who were they?"

"Boy weren't you paying attention? That was the king and queen! Their _majesties!"_

"I mean…ummm..."

"Oooooh boy you're still too young for _those_ kind of thoughts!"

Kristoff blushes scarlet as he's led down the valley and tries to bury his head in the mossy blanket he's wearing, which is difficult because every time he does so Sven keeps nuzzling up against him.

He had watched from behind Bulda, half blind from the snowstorm, as people-shaped shadows moved like a puppet-show on the great stone hand, and then several things had happened at all once: The king had turned back to the group of soldiers and gave some sign Kristoff couldn't see, and the tension had leaked out of the entire lot of them like a deflated water-skin. By some miracle the storm had started to dissipate, changing from a howling gale to a strong wind, and once again Kristoff could see through the distance to catch a glimpse of the ghost he had spent the night chasing, now with her arms wrapped around the smaller red-haired girl he spotted when the storm was at its peak. He hadn't had have a moment to spare to look at her though, because they had been locked onto the first girl whose eyes had looked like sapphire chunks in the rising sun's light. Finally, he had watched as words were exchanged between the king and the troll-leader, and the result of _that_ was obvious even to him.

"Pabby?" Bulda had asked as the weary old stone walked back towards them. Behind him the king and the others had mounted their horses to leave.

"It was no use, he was…insistent."

"You foolish old troll, letting them leave just like that!"

"He is the king, my dear, and some bonds are too strong for a 'foolish old troll' to simply walk and stand between."

"Pabby you _know_ we can't just leave it at-"

Bulda's eyes widened like dinner plates as Pabby waved a hand at her, then he had looked down at Kristoff. "And who is this little one, brave enough to climb the mountain on a winter's night?"

"'M Kristoff," he managed to stutter. Something warm and fuzzy and smelly pushed itself out from under the moss blanket. "And this is my best friend Sven!"

Pabby and Bulda exchanged a look, this time one he can't decipher. Then the old troll turned without a word and walked back towards the guards, all ready to leave. Kristoff looked at all of them and finally spotted them; two smaller shapes, bundled up against the winter cold, huddled up on the saddle of the guard-captain. He couldn't see them clearly under the twists of fabric but it looked like they were holding hands.

"Kristoff my boy."

He was jerked out of his focus as Pabby talks. "Whut?"

"How would you like to visit the home of the trolls?"

And what young boy, raised on the myths and legends of a bunch of superstitious old ice-miners, would have been able to say no to that offer?

Which was how he found himself walking through the strangest forest-cum-valley-cum hot spring he had ever seen, covered in a thick blanket made out of the same moss, led by real trolls.

"Wow…" He puts his hand over a plume of steam rising from the ground and only keeps it there for a second before it becomes hot enough to scald.

"Mind now boy. The earth here keeps us nice and cosy but mind you don't test her patience," Pabby says, but not in the way one of the miners would chastise and slap him for playing around with one of their tools. More in the way that he's really worried he might get hurt. It's a nice kind of warning.

"Whose patience?"

"The mountain of course!" Bulda says. She hasn't let either of them out of her sight since they had left the company of the king. "All over the place she's one frosty mother, but here where we live she got breath hot enough to make a dragon shudder."

"What's a dragon?"

Bulda pauses for a second open-mouthed, then grabs the two of them into another bear-hug. "Ooooh you're so _cute!_ Now we're _definitely _keeping you!"

For Kristoff the next few hours pass in a blur. The narrow passage ends and changes into a flat plain of warm rock and moss, and Kristoff gapes as he watches the aurora dance in the sky above them, as bright and colourful as any he's ever seen in his short life. He wonders if it's because the king visited the mountain, but that train of thought is de-railed immediately as suddenly he's pelted with small rocks and pebbles that turn into a herd of trolls, adults and children and elders, all of those want to talk to the human stranger and his warm slobbery pet. For Kristoff the next few hours are the happiest of his life.

* * *

"Oh my dear, I fear we have all made a terrible mistake."

"Quit your whining Pabby, it isn't like you. No sense in complaining about the past, better we look to fixin' the future." Secretly though she's worried. Pabby is old, _old_, even for a troll, and now he looks every second of that age.

"The future is what I am afraid of now, my dear, and all the more because I cannot imagine why I should be. Those two young princesses…."

"Those two girls! Why Pabby maybe you really are getting' too old if you were afraid of them. Why, looking at that pair I've never seen a family so close."

"And that love is what I am afraid of. In all the world there's no greater force than love. Those with love beating in their breast can do incredible things. Slay dragons with nothing more than a simple blade, wake the dead with a kiss and conquer armies without a single soldier that will follow them. Love can make someone jump into hell without a moment's thought, or thaw a heat that's never known peace."

"Then I see no reason for you to worry your craggy head about them, if'n they have such a force on their side," Bulda says, but she looks at the old troll leader, as close a friend as she's ever had, and can see he isn't convinced. Or isn't thinking in that direction at all.

And Pabby isn't. He's lived on the mountain for generations, and troll memory goes deeper, goes into the very rocks itself. He remembers the stories his father told him, and _his_ father before him. All of them were clever wrappings meant to reveal a moral or warning at the end, and one of them is pushing itself up through the ground now and jumping up and down for attention. One about a boy and girl and a queen and a mirror of ice. He saw the look in the eyes of the crown princess when even the _thought_ of taking her sister away had been mentioned to her, and he remembers the ice he felt around Anna's little heart. He hopes that nothing is wrong, that everything will be fine. He hopes that the fierce love he could see between the two sisters would keep them safe from the mistake he feared he'd seen tonight.

He hopes that when he passes on his children won't have a new story, about a pair of princesses and a hand of stone, and a heart of ice.

"Kristoff!"

The boy turns away from his game with the other troll children and skips (skips!) towards Pabby and Bulda. "Yes!"

Pabby and Bulda share a glance, having already shared what she knows about the boy before they arrived. "How do you like it here my boy?" Pabby asks gently. About this however, he won't have to worry.

The boy beams. "I love it!"

"How would you like to come up and visit any time you want?"

He doesn't even have to finish the sentence.

* * *

"Why Pabby that's a rotten thing you're thinking, you old fossil."

Pabby doesn't really bother to argue, because she's right. He can wrap it up in nice disguises, talk about how much good they can do for an orphan boy, but good doesn't erase bad. Like a rock hidden inside a thrown snowball, it looks pretty flying through the air but it will draw blood when it hits. "I know my dear, I know. I have good intentions."

Bulda crosses her arms and sighs. When she speaks it's in the gravelly voice of a woman who absolutely means what she says. "Don't you just use that boy and throw him away Pabby, I'm warning you."

"I promise." _Give more than you take,_ _help more than you hurt _has been the motto he's tried to live all his life, ever since his ancestors came out of the ever-hotter and less…accommodating...south, to beg the old king for a place to live. Old King Olaf had given them one, in exchange for promises of fealty.

The current king is no Olaf, all beady-eyed and afraid as he teetered between holding up the old ways of his fathers and the support and stability that the worship of the new Christ-God brought. Agdar is a kind-hearted man who tries his best for his subjects, sometimes possibly a little too willing to strike a bad deal to keep the peace. The king also owes him a favour, from the last time a bad deal went a little too sour, and Pabby now intends to collect on it. The boy is clearly a natural with animals, the king's stables always need clearing out, and since time began young girls have always loved horses…

"Kristoff is a good lad," Bulda says, looking at her clan leader with perhaps a sharper eye than she normally would. "He just needs a little guidance in his life, not those horrible old ice-stabbers he's been dragged around by."

He nods, but his mind is elsewhere. In the story of his father and his grandfather, the boy had been the cursed one, rescued from the clutches of the snow queen by the love and pure heart of his children sweetheart.

Pabby watches as the young boy and his reindeer play with the other trolls, and in the boy's content and innocent smile sees a store of hope, to be nurtured and kept against a cold day that – to his own ancestors and the human God he hoped would never come – that it might be needed.

END OF CHAPTER

_Four down._

_A big thanks to people still reading, and all the new followers. A great thing about FFnet is that even if you don't leave a review I can still see how many people are reading along by traffic stats, and by the ones for this one I can see that's a whole bunch of people and I really appreciate that. A big thanks to those who've already followed and reviewed because I'm not gonna lie I still get a kick out of hearing real feedback and see those fav/follow numbers go up. Generally you can expect an update once a week, plus or minus a few days as real life interferes with me or I get into a good groove (so don't fear HawtDamm the show will go on). I'll post updates around 7-9 GMT.  
_

_**Still looking for that proof-reader too.** Basically someone who's willing to check me for spelling and grammer and who I can bounce the plot off and is willing to say 'no Cobray that's fuckin' dumb' in exchange for, essentially, early access.**  
**_

_Alright enough talking about me, chapter notes:_

_Oh Kristoff, you really do just blunder into things don't you? The movie said nothing about how the hell a young boy ended up following a group of _ice miners_ so neither will I, except that it was obviously tragic. I'm perfectly willing to believe that superstitious old workmen would take a young star-struck boy to a frozen mountain for luck because hey this is the beginning of the industrial revolution and what are child rights? I'm not entirely heartless though, Kristoff has some good days and bad days ahead of him  
_

_Speaking of whom the ice-miners really lost out in the saints department. Hell even tin miners got their own specific patron but do dudes who go out onto middle of frozen rivers over freezing water? Nooooooo. I figured Saint Erhard was as close as we were going to get, even if France isn't exactly near Norway. _

_Old Olaf is of course Saint Olaf; King Olaf II. Like a lot of kings back then he barely qualified as a Christian (what with all the wars and the murder) but made a big show of it to placate the peasantry, and was canonised pretty much the second he died as a political move to create a national unifying figure. Like Kristoff the history of the trolls is pretty much a blank page, and I like the idea of the trolls fleeing from an increasingly Christianised and anti-pagan Europe to try and make a home in a place still filled with the old religions and stories.  
_

Frozen Heart_ would probably not be used as an actual work song. It's too complex for one, and the tempo changes too much and becomes too fast for another, you don't want a fast tempo for something as dangerous as any kind of mining. It's probably too dirge-like for the other place they'd sing it too; pubs after work to get drunk and forget about the work they just did. It's a fantastic song though and of course the most symbolic and foreboding on the entire _Frozen_ soundtrack, so the hell with it._

_Askeladde/Askeladd/Askeladden is a recurring figure in Norway mythology and children's stories, the middles ages' own little Dennis the Menace who went after his enemies with wits rather than fists. A more human and less antagonistic Loki. Both sisters have aspects of his personality and skills, and this definitely isn't the last time we'll be seeing the name._

_This is probably the last time there'll be an author's note as big as this one. Tumblr has to be useful for something and I'm not gonna lie I'd like to try and use it to get the fic spread a little further afield, so I'll probably put them there instead to give you a reason to visit, follow and reblog it. So if you enjoy a chapter and want to see a little of the background thinking and notes that go into the story and my writing process shimmy on over to **cobraygordon dot tumblr dot com**._

_Peace out._

_Cobray_


	5. We Know Better

Early this week. Chapter notes at cobraygordon dot tumblr dot com.

* * *

An older sibling's life is comprised of two sentences.

_Do you know where your sister is?_

_Can you talk to your sister for us?_

"Y'majesty, have you seen the princess Anna?"

Elsa looked up from her book to see the large, round and red face of the woman, a picture made no prettier by the fact that she was huffing for air like a steam engine. "What's wrong Ola?"

The cook's assistant took a deep breath and steadied herself on the armchair Elsa was resting on, leaving a floury handprint behind. "Someone's been sneaking into the kitchens again, and this time it isn't just pies and cakes missing y'majesty."

"What else?"

The exhausted cook told her. If she was alone Elsa would have groaned, but that wasn't the kind of noise young princesses made in front of the servants. _And I just spent twenty minutes getting comfortable._ The castle library was ancient, every king and queen that had held dominion over Arendelle adding to it haphazardly as they were born, raised and died. Every one of them had had their favourite almanacs, books of genealogy, bibles (there was a whole shelve dedicated to bibles so ancient they looked as if the passage of time had melded them into a single seven foot-long tome) and novels, and none of them had ever thrown anything out! Unwanted gifts and outdated stories were there. Paper of all kinds had simply been thrown into the gaping maw of the library and forgotten about. Where the floor wasn't covered in creaking oaken bookshelves it was dotted in old furniture; ancient dusty armchairs and seating that could have been brought to the country two hundred years ago, red and green upholstery softened and imprinted by generations of occupants. You could sit down and sink inches into them, surrounded by warm musty leather.

To twelve year-old Elsa it was a small quiet slice of heaven, away from the tutors and servants that had over the years somehow taken up more and more of her day. It had started gradually, so gradually in fact she'd barely noticed it when nannies had started asking her questions and expecting answers. After that classrooms had replaced playrooms, and servants had morphed slowly but sternly into governesses. At first she had been more than a little annoyed, but her father had put his foot down instantly and with a tone she almost never heard from him.

_Elsa, your education is vital. You will rule one day, god willing, and when you do you need to be prepared. Other royal children your age have already begun their education, we can't waste any more time. This is what you should come to expect until you come of age._ King Agdar didn't mention the fact that procuring governesses for Elsa had been just a little more expensive and a little more time-consuming than he remembered his own being. They couldn't very well expect cooks and maids to be responsible for their princesses' education. The eventual hires had records so spotless they could be used as bed-sheets, and utter reliability.

Elsa knew her father was right ('daddy' had left her vocabulary soon after that little talk), and she'd felt more than a little sick at the thoughts he'd put in her head. Children her age were already smarter than she was? She felt like she'd let him down. Let the kingdom down. When she had thoughts like that she'd feel the bottom drop out of her stomach and the air around her become spikey and cold and she needed to go and stand by a fire while she worked the bad thoughts out of her head. She knew she had responsibilities she had to live up to and sometimes it was almost like she could feel them above her, crushing her from the head down. When it got bad she found the biggest, hottest fireplace and sat there as the floors iced up around her, spiderwebs of frost radiating out from her, fragile just like she felt. When it got bad she would stay there for hours, afraid to move as if breaking the beautiful, tiny network of ice around her would break something in her heart as well.

Still though, she would never think that time spent with her little sister was 'wasted'. Not even a little bit.

When it got _really_ bad, Anna was the one she would turn to.

* * *

She knew where to start.

Even kicking her blue dress out of the way with every step Elsa knew she'd have to change when she entered the castle again. The servants worked hard but the stables were just too huge to be cleaned by the few staff they had left, and so only a few pathways and open areas were kept spotless. The rest of it was given a daily sweep and called good. Elsa hated going back there, but...ah, there. She saw her target, a giant bale of straw that was undulating softly in the mid-day sun, and not because of any breeze. She stopped in front of it and crossed her arms.

"Kristoff!"

The straw paused for a second, then started unfolding, and as Elsa watched the giant golden bale turned slowly and painfully into a brown and red lump topped with straw-coloured hair, that stared down at her with bleary amber eyes.

Kristoff stared silently for a second as his brain tried to process the blue-ish blobs in front of him. Finally two of those blobs turned from vague clouds into electric-blue eyeballs, and he shot to as much attention as a boy can when he's still half-asleep. "Your majesty? What are you doing down at the stables? Not that you can't come down to the stables anytime you want I mean they're yourstablesandmaybeI'lljuststop…talking. Now." He coughed.

Elsa resisted the urge to sigh. "Kristoff, have you…" No, try again. "Kristoff, where's Anna?"

"Where's Ann- her majesty? Your majesty? I'm sure I don't…" he trailed off into excuses.

Elsa liked Kristoff, but would never admit it to the boy's face. When Elsa was ten he had simply appeared one day at the stables saddling a horse for Elsa's riding lessons, and that had been it, really. Except it hadn't been it, because every single time Elsa had been down into the stables or the courtyard the boy with the straw head had been there too, shovelling hay, or replacing a cracked horseshoe, or sweeping the flagstones, or any of the other thousand jobs a stable-full of animals needed doing to not turn into a pit of disease and stench. Eventually she'd learned, and more than once she'd whipped her head around fast enough to catch him staring, at which point, every time, he'd glance away with a beet-red face of the truly caught-in-the-act.

"Kristoff liiiiiiikes you," Anna had teased when she had told her younger sister, laid on her back on an Elsa-made snowdrift, head dangled down and making rude faces at her older sister.

"No he doesn't! He looks dumb and he smells of horse all the time! And anyway he isn't a prince."

Anna had no argument for that, sitting on her little Elsadrift. Both of them had very strong opinions on princes, and Kristoff definitely wasn't one of them. "He still likes you though. Horse prince!"

_Anna!_

"You can be his horse princess! And you can ride horses all day and gloofmps." A faceful of snowball stopped whatever Anna was going to say next, and in seconds both sisters were reduced to incomprehensible giggling as they chased each other through the snow-covered dancehall.

It had been only a few days after when Elsa had been putting on her riding gloves, when Anna had grabbed her from behind."Come with me."

Elsa had let herself be led around the stone walls. "Anna where are we going? I have to get to the les-" Then Anna had dragged her around the corner and to the person waiting there, and ten year-old Elsa had _shrieked_.

Almost as loud as Kristoff had in fact. Elsa hadn't known boys could shriek. The next ten minutes had wavered between confusing, aggravating and terrifying.

"Just tell Elsa you like her!" Anna had demanded.

The boy looked between the two of them like a deer being chased by wolves on both sides. "I don't like her!"

"_Why not?"_ little Anna had asked, glaring at the ten year-old boy. Glaring _up._ Even at that age Kristoff was already taller than Anna and Elsa both.

"I don't mean I don't like her! Like you!"

"Then you _do_ like her! Confess!" Anna shouted, kicking him in the shins.

"Owwww!"

The miniature child-interrogation had gone on her several more minutes, and probably could have lasted even longer if Kristoff's natural honesty hadn't finally gotten sick of and overruled his embarrassment.

"I like your ice!"

The interrogation after _that_ had been Anna alone, towering over and shouting at and subjugating the older, stronger and taller boy completely, until they had the truth out of him and Kristoff was scared to death of the redhead's wrath.

"It's pretty. That's all. I just…" Kristoff had looked down into her eyes. "I saw you in the mountain, on the snow. You were pretty."

And just like that Elsa's dislike (or at least distaste) of Kristoff had melted away like…well…like the snow in summer. They hadn't become friends exactly; she was still the crown princess and he was a stableboy and dogsbody for the castle, but they'd become something a little closer than just master and servant. Because for all that the remaining castle staff were loyal beyond any reasonable doubt and incredibly kind in their interactions with the royal princess, they still treated her power the way her father had when he had first discovered it; a curse. Kristoff didn't. Kristoff thought her magic was beautiful, and that thought alone brought her more comfort than the pitying glances and kind words from her maids that one day it will be all sorted out. Elsa would smile and nod and make sure her clenched hands were out of sight, frustration building inside her until she felt like screaming. Kristoff was who she needed when Anna alone wasn't enough to remind her that her power was hers, not some cruel fate by God. He was her occasional confidant and safety-valve.

To Anna he had become a partner-in-crime.

"Anna took something from the kitchens and I need to find her before...ah-ha!" She pointed a victorious finger at the increasingly red-faced boy. Kristoff was a terrible liar, "You do know where she is."

He sighed. "She made me promise not to tell you."

That was new. Usually Anna practically demanded Elsa take part in her games. "Where is she?"

* * *

"_Anna!" _Elsa hissed in the way of all children who are trying to shout and whisper at the same time. She needn't have bothered, she wasn't going to be overhead with the noise around her.

In the courtyard below Arendelle's soldiers trained, all flashing steel and blue uniforms. A co-ordinated mess colour that twisted and moved as they drilled swordplay, riding and archery, the red sashes of the drill instructors breaking up the navy sea as they shouted at those unlucky enough to have caught their eye. Arendelle hadn't fought a ground war for…we…since _ever_, being locked by mountains on one side and the ocean to the other. They still practised though, and every ship in their _superbly_-trained navy had their soldiers. Seeing them in books had been so romantic; brave and dashing soldiers swinging on ropes over to the enemy pirate ships. To Elsa's young eyes though the scene below would have been just an incomprehensible mess. If she had been looking.

"_ANNA!"_

Anna sat on the edge of the slate roof, staring down at the noisy soldiers, enchanted. Elsa could even see how she had gotten there; she had got into one of the closed-off wings on the fourth story of the castle looking down onto the courtyard, then had used the stone buttresses and merlons as hand-holds to climb down until she was looking over the courtyard. Arendelle castle hadn't needed to worry about invasion for generations; successive kings and queens had re-modelled and torn down the thing on a whim, removing much of the defensive stonework a castle their size should have had. Some areas still had them though, and the area overlooking the drill yard was one of them.

Anna hadn't heard her. Elsa couldn't see her face from the window but she would be able to tell what expression it would have. She sighed and leaned over just a little bit. The drop from the window to the slate roofing wasn't much, she told herself. Just a few feet.

_But the drop from the roof to the ground isn't._

_Don't be afraid._ _You can make a snowdrift at the bottom. You can't be hurt._

_But what if I…_

Elsa stood at the window for a minute that felt like an eternity. But eventually worry about her sister, a flash of green dress and red hair that was only a few metres away, overruled her fear. She took a deep breath, and swung her leg out over the window.

"Els- Your majest- _Elsa!_" Kristoff spluttered, grabbing her arm. He gasped and pulled it away _fast_. He hissed at his hand, suddenly so cold it burned.

Kristoff was nice but he wasn't her sister. Elsa's power withdrew from him and free of his grasp she slipped her other foot over the window, and dropped down to the ledge below. Instantly the wild started howling and tugging at her, and she practically fell forward to claw her hands around a decorative stone angel. For a second she hung there dragging in cold air, exulting in her own courage.

_I did it!_

Anna was closer now and that was what mattered. "ANNA!" Still no response. It hadn't seemed this windy from back inside the windowsill.

She took another step and shrieked as she lost her footing on the smooth slate tiles. For a moment her entire world was the sloping roof and the long drop beyond it.

_You can do it Elsa you're a big girl now you CAN DO IT._

_You promised daddy you wouldn't._

But Anna was there, and she needed to get to Anna, and in the face of those two facts her promise to her father never to reveal her power was very distant. Ice flew out from her hands, whirling around her and past Anna and suddenly where there had only been blue skies and empty air beyond the roof there was a tiny, Elsa-sized snowbank pushed up against the stone merlon she was slipping towards. She closed her eyes and the world went white and soft.

"_ELSA!" _Anna looked around as a sudden chill enveloped the rooftop, just in time to see Elsa cannonball into the snow-covered stone plank next to her. She shrieked in panic and jumped over the roof as if the forces of gravity didn't apply to her, and started shovelling giant handfuls of snow away. "Are you okay!"

Giant teal eyes were framed against the sky as Anna looked down at Elsa. She tries to lever herself up and winces as she feels something ache in her hands where she braced herself against the impact. "Ooowww..."

"Are you okay!?" As if Anna herself hadn't just twisted her ankle jumping across the roof. But Elsa was hurt and that was all that mattered.

"I'm fine." She didn't feel fine. In fact she felt rotten, but Anna was staring down at her with teary eyes and she hated that. Carefully trying to avoid putting weight on her palms she sat up until she had her back against the snowdrift and stone pedestal. "Anna what are you doing up here?"

Her little sister was suddenly looking at every place _but_ at her, and that was when she knew Anna had _really_ been doing something she wasn't supposed to be doing. On top of skipping her lessons, stealing from the kitchens, and conspiracy to misbehave. "I was just watching. Y'know. The guards."

Elsa tried her best mommy voice. _"Anna..."_

Anna blushed and looked down at the ground. "I'm sorry okay! I just wanted to watch…"

"Do you know how much trouble you'll be in for coming up here?" The drop was out of sight but not out of mind. Four stories down onto a stone courtyard and Elsa couldn't but help but think _what if_. She had barely managed to stop herself from smacking into a stone wall a few feet from the window, what chance would she have had if Anna fell from… "And you could have gotten Kristoff in trouble too!" She pointed back up at the window where the boy was staring back at them, glancing back along the corridor now and then. Elsa remembered why she had come looking for Anna in the first place. "And what you took from the kitchens too! Where is it Anna?"

During the little tantrum Anna's expression had started to shift from sad and apologetic to childish and surly. She reached behind her back and when Elsa saw what her little sis had taken she gasped. "_Anna that's dangerous!"_

It was one of the biggest ice-knives Elsa had seen, probably one of the biggest in the kitchens. She'd been it before being used by the assistant cook; a huge man with arms as thick as her waist. In her little sister's hands it looked more like a sword than a knife, and that's…

_That's why she took it,_ she realised, and sighed. She reached across and enveloped her sister in a big gooey hug, feeling the heat of her sister's cheek against her own. Ever since she could remember Anna had always been like that when they touched, and now that her little sister was afraid and embarrassed and sorry she was white-hot.

"I just…I just wanted to try and practise a little!" Anna eventually managed to get out between blubbering sobs as Elsa ever-so-carefully levered the long sharp blade away from her little sister. Practically the minute that Anna had been old enough to read Elsa had dragged her away to the huge and dusty old library she spent so much time in. She had pictured herself sitting there in the giant comfy chairs by a roaring fireplace, Anna sat next to her as they read the stories Elsa had loved growing up. It had almost come true. Anna was interested in the same stories that Elsa was, but not the same characters. Elsa had loved kings and queens in those stories; good people who treated their citizens well and were loved by all. She didn't love them but she liked reading about the evil kings and queens too; powerful sorcerers that held thrall over their subjects and were feared by all.

Anna didn't. She paid barely any attention to them. She liked the heroes. She liked the adventures of the charming rogues and tricksters who passed by and were hired to slay the dragons and demons in the kingdom. When Elsa would want to read the story of Katie Woodencloak, Anna would sigh and fidget until it was her turn and she would have Elsa read another tale of Askeladde. When they were older and Anna could read on her own she had graduated from the funny clowns to the knights, and her play had turned from pranks and jokes to play swordfights and wizard duels that she would rope Elsa into as the captured princess or king that she would defend from the cruel monsters of the tired but indulgent servants. For Christmas one of the castle's carpenters had made Anna a little wooden sword, all rounded edges and blunt ends but a sword nonetheless. It had been Anna's favourite toy for all of half a year until she broke it, at which point the king and queen had found out, and the poor man had been forbidden from making her another. The argument had been lengthy, as the king had bumped up into the stubborn literalness of a young girl being told not to do something she really, really wanted to do.

_My love, young princesses are meant to grow up into beautiful and gracious queens._

_But Elsa is already so pretty, and _she's_ going to be the queen. So why can't I be a knight?_

_Because…because young girls aren't meant to play with dangerous things like that._

_Why are they dangerous for boys and not for girls?_

_Boys are big and strong._

_Kristoff isn't!_

_But he will be when he grows up._

_Well Kristoff isn't going to be a knight, he likes the stables and horses and his stinky pet. If Kristoff isn't going to be a knight can I take his place at…ummm… knight school?_

And around and around, until father had been ready to burst with frustration and the queen ready to burst with laughter. Eventually they had extracted a promise that Anna wouldn't try and 'practise at being a knight' with dangerous things, on the condition that, if she was _really good_ and paid attention to all her tutors, they would teach her archery when she was older. Archery still involved too many sharp objects for the king's taste, but it was known that ladies of the court practised it in the western courts as part of an upper-class education.

"You promised daddy." Between the two of them the king and queen were still mommy and daddy, not mother and father. "Come on." She held a hand out to her little sister. "We should go before we get in trouble."

"My lady that time has come and gone."

Elsa and Anna looked back up at the window to where Kristoff was standing, that special look in his eyes he used when he knew that to say anything at all would be to invite disaster. And good heavens wasn't this exactly that situation.

Kai stood behind him, one hand on the poor boy's shoulder, glaring down at the two of them.

"Ummm, we were looking at birds for our lessons and we spotted one on the roof but it was stuck and needed help and wethoughtwe'dcomeoutandtryand…help…it?"

"Lady Anna while you have many skills, lying is not one of them." Kai stepped aside and a soldier clambered out of the window, striding across the roof like a mountain-man.

"I…

Kai was already miles ahead of her. "Lady Elsa, please do not get yourself into any more trouble by trying to cover up for your sister."

Without asking permission the huge soldier (_if Anna wants to do this for the rest of her life she's nuts!)_ picked the siblings up and hauled them step by step back to the window, where they were dumped on the ground.

"Boy, run along to the duty captain and let him know the princesses have been found. Then report to the stables, to shovel the muck."

"Then what should I do sir?"

"Oh I imagine you'll be shovelling muck for quite a while. Off you go boy."

"Coward!" Anna shouted as Kristoff ran from the scene of the crime.

Kai looked down, aghast. _"That_ is quite enough of _that_ young lady! Do you have any idea how worried we were?"

"I was fine. I had Elsa."

Just hearing her say those words brought a warmth into Elsa's heart. But Kai wasn't convinced. "And if Elsa hadn't found you? What would have happened then?" Anna had the good grace to stay quiet. "As I thought. Come along. Your father will hear about this."

Anna looked at Elsa behind Kai's back and mouthed; _Sword?_

Elsa just smiled, and after a second Anna was smiling too. The huge guard closed the window behind them, throwing the latch on the sun outside the strange out-of-season snowdrift that had come down on the rooftops. And the ice-knife Elsa had quickly hidden inside it.

* * *

"…have any _idea_ how worried we were when they told us? _Climbing on the castle roof?_ What if you hadn't been seen, what if you'd fallen!"

"I'm sorry daddy."

"And you! What if someone _had_ seen you! Your…your _power_ isn't a toy to be played with!"

"I'm sorry, father."

The fact that the anger was coming from a place of worry didn't make the words hurt any less. _At least he didn't call it a curse this time. _Elsa and Anna sat on their knees at the foot of the table, eyes locked to the floor as the king scolded them. Kai had brought both princesses into the long hall and the council meeting had been cut short there and then. Elsa knew all of the councillors that advised her father and almost all of them had shot her a pitying glance as they left.

"…taught you more sense than this, both of you!" The king took a deep breath. "You're princesses of this nation, you can't act like street urchins clambering over everything you see! Look at me, both of you." They did so. "This behavior shows me I have been more relaxed than I should about the both of you. Anna, you will not be learning archery this year."

"No!" Anna tried to sound as disappointed as she could but secretly she was relieved. She knew that it would have been far, far worse if daddy knew she had taken the swor- the knife from the kitchen.

The younger dealt with, the king turned to the elder. "Elsa. You broke your promise to me."

"I did it to-"

But the king cut her off. "Regardless of why you did it a promise was still broken. You'll be making more promises in the future long after your mother and I are both gone. Promises that will keep Arendelle safe and prosperous, and if _those_ promises are broken it will mean more than disappointing someone. I have kept quiet until now, assuming that you would grow out of it, but I see this isn't happening. I have allowed this for too long."

_What is he…?_

The king took a deep breath. "You and Anna may no longer play with your powers in the northern corridor at night. At night I expect you both to be in your rooms and asleep, or I promise you I will build a wall between the two of your wings until you learn how to-"

Elsa gasped and felt something cold and sharp and bad slice through her body at the words. _No more midnight snowmen. No more sledding down the staircases. No more drawing snowflakes on the windows at night._ "Father!"

If the reaction from Elsa had been personal and cold though, the reaction from Anna was the exact opposite.

"_NO! NO NO NO!"_

Elsa stood there open-mouthed at the look on Anna's face as it turned from resignation at her own punishment into something betweenincredible sadness and _absolute fury._

Their mother was just as shocked. "Anna! Listen to your father!"

Anna stood and for a half-second Elsa could have swore if her lil' sis had still had that ice-knife she would have waved it. Instead Anna ran to Elsa and crashed into her hard enough to hurt, wrapping her arms around her like a vice. She was so hot she almost burned. Elsa put her own hands around her sister and could feel Anna's heartbeat, hammering away like a blacksmith.

"_NO! I won't let you take her!"_ Anna shouted through tears.

Elsa was watching her sister in panic and didn't see the expressions her father went through. Agdar went from anger at being disobeyed, to disbelief at how strongly his little girl felt, and finally something alike to resignation._ Anna will never love me like she loves Elsa._ He looked over at his wife, who shook her head gently, then back at his daughters.

One of King Agdar's fondest memories of his father was travelling to their neighbour and ally Sweden on a small trade mission. The United States of America, the newest addition to the New World, was having trouble in its relations with an Orient who was not being shown the respect it believed was due. His father had decided that there was opportunity to extent if not a helping hand then at least a friendly ear to the merchants of the Silk Road. Agdar remembered meeting an old man, almost bent double with age and wrinkled enough for five other men, who had shown him an old symbol of the orient. It had been a beautiful piece of art; a circle of pure ivory and obsidian shaped into two teardrops that swirled around each other, each with a single drop of the other inside themselves. The old man had told him it was something from a religion even older than Christianity or his own ancestors, that it meant…He had been too young to fully grasp the explanation but looking down now at his daughters he thought he understood it better now.

They looked up at him, a fiery little girl dressed in warm green and crimson, anger and sadness surrounding a heart wrapped in the ice of the sister that loved her. The older sister all cool blues and pale whites. Calmer and more collected certainly, but he can look and see how her breath was fogging in the colder air that swirled around her, just a little angry at the thought of being separated from her sister. Both of them had their hands entwined around the other.

_They are stronger together._

"Very well, not this time" the king said as the voice of the old man retreated into the past. "But I mean it, both of you. The next time something of this magnitude happens, you will both spend some time being an only child."

* * *

Elsa looked out of the window with a sigh, the books she should have been studying forgotten. Elsa liked geometry, would usually have been enthralled to it, designing castles in her own head and imagining them on the landscapes outside, but tonight she just couldn't work up the energy.

Usually she wouldn't be in her room. She'd have 'snuck out' (all this time! All this time they'd known!) to join Anna and the two of them would have played in the corridor until exhaustion and fun had reduced them to laying on the soft snow side by side laughing. It had been one night and already she missed it.

And she couldn't use her powers. She loved her father but she hated him. There was a faint cracking noise and in front of her the window fogged up, snowflake symbols appearing on it. If anyone outside had been awake they would have looked up and seen as the patterns radiated out from her room, a kaleidoscope of white and blue decorating the castle walls for just a second before she stopped, and they melted away in the warm night.

All the years growing up she'd practised secretly and with Anna, and she still couldn't make her father understand. It felt like there was another, tiny little Elsa inside her that her father hated, and no matter how hard she tried and how pretty she made her she could never make him love that part of Elsa the way he loved the rest. Some nights she could feel it behind her eyes, in her head. Passing through the north corridor she'd look out at the huge north mountain and she knew she could do _so much more._

She sighed and tried to get her head back into the figures and numbers in front of her, but it just wasn't happening. Her eyes and concentration slid away from them until she simply gave up.

"…ls…"

She looked up. _What did…_

"…lsa!"

Elsa looked at the window and gasped. Without thinking about what her father had said that very day she crawled onto her desk on hands and knees and reached for the window-clasp. She had to grit her teeth to avoid shouting out as Anna tumbled through the glass and the two of them landed on the floor with a dull _thud._

"Anna what are you _doing!"_

Anna coughed through the long thin package she was holding in her mouth. "Visiting you!" She dusted herself down, her dress twisted up into a very un-girlish series of knots that left her legs free.

Elsa gaped. "H…_How!?"_

Anna straightened out her dress and removed the...Elsa almost screamed as she spotted the handle of the ice-knife sticking out of the flannel. _Anna had clambered across the castle roofs holding a sword in her mouth_, she thought with horror.

_Just like a storybook hero,_ another part of her thought, enraptured.

"They locked my bedroom door."

A wise precaution. _They forgot the window though I guess_. "Anna don't you remember what father said?" Elsa asked, panicking just thinking about the threat he'd dangled over both their heads. She'd already accepted not being able to use her powers anymore, had even accepted not be able to play at night anymore. But to not see her again anymore? For however long? For any length of time at all? It made her scared, _really_ scared. Scared like she'd been forever ago taking Anna up her mountain.

Anna put her hands on her hips and gave Elsa her best glare, glaring as effectively as a nine year-old could; not well at all. "I don't care what daddy said," Anna said. "If I'm gonna play with my sister I'm gonna and no evil king is gonna stop me!" She held the knife up in one hand and for a second Elsa really could believe Anna was the knight she always wanted to be. She looked fearless.

Elsa smiled and laughed for the first time since they'd left the meeting room father had scolded them in. She felt better just having Anna around, like the small piece of her ice she'd left in her little sister called out to her and made her whole when it was near. Anna didn't judge her or her powers. Without thinking she rushed forward and hugged Anna to her as hard as she could. _She's so warm._ She felt tears pricking at her eyes.

"Elsa what's wrong?"

"Nothing."

Anna didn't argue or try to push her away. The little girl knew without asking something really _was_ wrong. She had started her lessons later than Elsa and already they were annoying to her. She wanted to be learning useful things like…like how to make things and defend things and how to make people happy. Instead she was learning how to look and act pretty.

"They keep telling me who I have to be," Elsa mumbled into her sister's hair. "All my tutors keep telling me I have to be this perfect person and I'm scared I'll never be that Anna."

"Yeah well _my_ tutor keeps telling me I have to be full of charm and grace, and always wear pink and curtsey," Anna said back.

"Well _my_ ugly tutors keep saying I need to always smile and never be seen eating, or freeze her tea when she tries to drink it."

"Well _my horrible, really smelly tutors_ say I can't climb around the castle or scrape my knees."

Both sisters collapsed into giggling, the tears on their face now from laughter and joy instead of sadness and fear. For the rest of the night they went back and forth laughing and talking, their usual play with ice and snow forgotten. Instead they just sat there, holding onto each other's hands and talking. Two girls; one with a heart of fire but wrapped in ice, the other with a heart of ice covered in warmth.

_They think we should be like other princesses._

_But we know better._


	6. Suns

"Elsa, you need to eat your breakfast, not just move it around your plate."

"Yes mother," Elsa sighed, looking down at her plate and feeling nauseous. Normally she liked scrambled eggs and toast, but…well…

_It means you're a real woman now Elsa,_ her mother had told her only last night, brushing her hair softly as Anna had held her midriff and cried.

She felt her insides churn and cramp and thought _if this is what being a real woman is I'd like to go back to being a kid again if that isn't too much trouble._ She looked enviously across at Anna sitting next to her, shovelling toast and bacon into her mouth.

"Maybe some fresh air would do you good?" the king asked as Elsa's eggs took another lap around her plate. He looked up from his own meal to see his wife and eldest daughter both glaring daggers at him. "Apologies."

"May I be excused?" Elsa asked.

"Not until you finish your breakfast dear. You _know_ you need to keep your strength up."

Elsa felt her hands grow cold and quickly put them under the table where her parents couldn't see. Ever since she had turned sixteen it felt like conversations like this had been the norm. A small part of her had always knew that it would be; her education was a gigantic upside-down pyramid that had started small and had blossomed further and further out and now threatened to topple right onto her. When eventually the shaky structure was complete the words placed there would read _Queen of Arendelle, _but Elsa had no idea when that horizontal line signifying the end of _learning_ and the start of _doing_ would be drawn. Attempts at hurrying the process by excelling at anything her tutors threw at her had just resulted in more being thrown.

_If you dig the best ditches it just means they give you a bigger shovel,_ Kristoff had said with the maddening calm of someone who wasn't having knowledge shoved into their brains at a rate of knots.

And now this. The food in front of her could have been worms for how appetising it felt to Elsa right now. For all the stories she'd read and had read to her about growing up somehow _this_ had slipped by all of them? Was there some grand conspiracy nobody had told her about? _And you'll grow up to marry a handsome prince, and become a beautiful queen loved by all, and your kingdom will last for a thousand years. Also starting at sixteen at regular monthly intervals it will feel like Sven has shoved his antlers into your guts._

"Elsa, please," the king said softly, and Elsa looked back up at the table and gasped. Starting at her own plate and radiating out a layer of frost coated the table, like half of a giant snowflake that was trying to encroach on her. Anna had simply lifted up her plate and put it back down again and continued eating like nothing was wrong, but both her parents had shifted their chairs back, away from the table. Away from her.

She bit her lip to stop herself from shouting. It made her so angry. Years and years and _years_ since there had been a single…accident and still her parents treated her like a storm waiting to happen. Ever since the incident with the roof and the ice-knife she felt like she was being suffocated, tied down. She could feel the power swirling inside her begging to be let out, but every chance passed by.

_I promised._

Hours she had once spent carving beautiful vistas onto the walls with intricate ice patterns had been painted over and replaced by the next morning. Rooms that she and Anna had played in her closed and cordoned off like the rest of the castle. Flurries made in summer to cool down in the blazing heat were met with disapproving glances. It might have been better if she thought they were doing it out of malice or some way of punishing her, but Elsa was too smart for that. She knew they were doing it because they loved her and were worried about her, and that made it a thousand times worse. Because she knew they were so, so wrong, and when her father grabbed her hands and told her to _stop this immediately_ it made her so furious. They were wrong and she had no way to make them see that. On days where that kind of thing happened she would go to the north corridor and stare out at the mountain for hours, and the sight would calm her.

Only Anna and Kristoff let her be who she knew she really was.

She felt a tap at her leg and looked sideways to see Anna inching her plate over. Elsa checked that neither of her parents were watching and then quickly spooned over as much scrambled egg as she dared. Anna immediately took it back and dug in, leaving Elsa with a tiny mouthful that she gulped down as fast as she could. "Now may I be excused?" A quick nod from her mother, and Elsa pushed herself back from the table, hearing the now-frozen tablecloth crack as she did so.

She left the room, her cheeks burning with embarrassment.

_I hate them so much._

* * *

"You shouldn't-"

_Thunk_

"-let it get-"

_Thunk_

"-to you."

Elsa sat at the table the servants had set out in the inner garden and watched Anna. "Easy for you to say, you're not the one who feels like she's been head-butted by a reindeer," she said, one hand idly fiddling with the blue scarf she was wearing over the blue cotton dress she'd picked out for the day. The sun beat down on them both with waves of heat but Elsa's flurry kept them both cool, making the air around them sparkle like diamonds suspended in air.

_How can they look at this and not love it,_ Anna had said the first time Elsa had tried it, sweeping a hand through the air and sending motes of snow and ice whirling around her like a beautiful storm. Elsa had agreed, but she still only did it when the servants weren't around to report back to her father.

In comparison to Elsa's traditional dress, Anna was dressed more like a servant-boy, or like Kristoff than a princess, a brown leather jacket over a simple shirt and trousers (trousers! On a girl!). Anna didn't like dresses much, and only wore them when basically forced. Dresses hemmed her in, made her move more slowly and act more carefully. She couldn't do _this_ in a dress, for a start.

_Thunk._

Another arrow flew straight and true into the target painted onto the tree on the other side of the garden. A good sixty yards. When their parents had finally relented and Anna had held a bow for the first time she'd been lucky to hit a much bigger tree from ten feet away. Their mother had called it a passing phase and that she would be bored in a month's time, but Elsa knew her sister better. Ten feet had turned into ten yards, then twenty yards, then thirty, and the target had turned from a giant oak just inside the castle walls to a smaller elm, then to a target dummy, then finally to the head of the target dummy.

Anna had said by the next year she'd be able to hit either eye in the dummy's head whenever she wanted, and though her father had laughed he hadn't disagreed. Even at her age, Anna was better than any apprentice in the castle, and fast becoming as good as some of the actual soldiers.

"Can't your powers do anything about it?" Anna asked, notching another arrow.

"Freezing myself solid for a few days isn't a solution Anna," Elsa snapped back. Sometimes her little sister had more faith in her gift than _she_ did. On cue her insides churned again. "This isn't fair, why don't boys have this kind of problem?" she muttered.

Anna drew back as Elsa watched her little sister, the book she was supposed to be reading forgotten. Her chest rose up as she held the breath in, a sparkle in her eyes that had nothing to do with the snowflakes that dotted the air. For a half-second she stood, legs apart, still as a statue, and then-

_Thunk_

Anna had barely moved but suddenly there the arrow was; dead centre in the middle of the tree, clustered along with all the others. Anna licked her lips as she picked another from the ground. Since she had first picked up the bow her parents had given her years ago – after the mess with the roof and the knife had finally cleared away – and started actually hitting things with it she had loved archery. It was so much more…satisfying…than the rest of the lessons she was taking in the castle. Courtesy and elegance and proper bearing and all of the little things which seemed to be the entirety of _how to be a princess_. The way she stood and danced and held a fan, or how to talk or _who_ to talk with, and about what. The clothes she had to wear that made her feel scratchy and exposed. It was all just so difficult and confusing. She liked the feel of a bow's smooth wood or a horse's warm flank under her. She liked riding and archery and walking through the castle under a nice breeze. She liked talking with the servants and sneaking off to help Kristoff tend to the flocks of animals the castle kept and to feed Sven carrots. She liked wearing warm wool and leathers and being able to sneak around and clamber the trees in a way a dress wouldn't let her. She liked the feeling of the air whispering past her face as she let an arrow loose and she liked the sound they made when they sunk into the wood and straw she aimed them at, a sound that made her feel warm in a way she couldn't describe. Sometimes she caught herself looking at the swords strapped to the waists of the castle guards and was _still_ envious.

The more she learned about how to be a princess the less sure she was that she wanted to be one.

She glanced over at the table to see Elsa watching her, cool blue eyes staring at her, and felt better and worse at the same time. Her big sister sat there and just seemed to be a princess so…effortlessly. With just a blue dress and scarf on she radiated elegance in a way Anna knew she couldn't hope to match. Elsa was older and always would be but sometimes looking at her Anna felt the three-year gulf between the two and wondered if she would ever become a woman the same way Elsa had. Ever since she had been old enough to know what the word _heir_ meant she had felt mismatched against her in a way that might have caused problems if they hadn't been so close. Some days Anna felt like she was all jagged edges, and just being near Elsa smoothed them out and made her whole again and she wouldn't trade that away for anything, not even for a crown.

"Anna, are you alright?" Elsa asked, and Anna could see the concern in her eyes. Even as Elsa grimaced and shifted her hips in pain she still cared about Anna more.

Anna dropped her bow and turned to hide the blush she knew was creeping up on her. "Let's go see Kristoff."

"I have a lesson in-" Elsa began to say, but Anna had already grabbed her hand and hoisted her from the summer chair.

"Oh come on. You can feed Sven a carrot!"

Elsa smiled. "Alright fine, you've convinced me." She let herself be dragged along and Anna laughed, the snowflakes dancing and fading in the air as they left the garden.

They could be children a little longer.

* * *

Kristoff wasn't alone. He rarely was these days. When her father had said that one day Kristoff was going to be big enough to wield a sword he hadn't been wrong. The scrawny under-fed boy that had been brought into the castle on some nebulous favour to someone had grown up on years of good castle food and hard labour into someone who at sixteen was a match for any of the soldiers in Ardenelle. Where once he and Anna could have cheerfully butted heads, she would now have needed to stand on a bucket to do the same. He was still the same Kristoff as ever; bluff, honest, more than a little blockheaded, but somehow to Anna's confusion (Kristoff's too) those seemed to have changed from traits that got him in trouble once too often into qualities that had the younger servants of the staff always finding excuses to talk with him.

Friendship with the princesses that nobody outside of the three could really explain didn't seem to hurt either.

"Kristoff!" Anna waved as Kristoff and the girls he was talking with looked around. From their clothes two of the milkmaids that made endless circuits between the kitchens and the stables. The uniforms made them kind of interchangeable but Anna was good with faces, and recognised the brown-haired girl, a couple of years older than she was. "Hi Eva." From the way her uniform barely fit her the other girl was new, and definitely younger than her, and looked _absolutely terrified_ that she was suddenly in the presence of the royal princesses.

Hair so brown it was almost black framed a pair of dark amber eyes that shut as the girl curtsied, not an easy thing to do gracefully when your arms were weighed down with steel pails. "M'lady." The eyes opened back up and stared into hers as wisps of hair fluttered across her face. "I hope you're well this morning."

"Doing okay," Anna replied cheerfully.

The eyes went down again as Elsa approached the three. "Your majesty."

"Eva." For all her education and years with them Elsa never really knew how to act around servants who weren't all old men and woman. She felt bad making people her age bow and curtsey to her. Eva wasn't one of the inner castle servants, she was just one of the nameless girls and boys who did all the grunt-work of making sure Arendelle didn't fall apart around them. Elsa passed them every day with little more than a nod and a curtsy and she always felt vaguely uneasy about it.

"Elsa's having a little trouble down there, just trying to distract her is all."

"_Anna!" _Elsa said, aghast. Anna shot her a raspberry.

Kristoff looked from the one sister to the other, uncomprehending, but Anna saw the little smile pass by Eva's face, almost too fast to notice. "It is a curse. Some herbs may help. Please excuse me." Without another word the milkmaids left before either of them could respond. _Did she just…_ Anna watched as the pair sashayed away. Britt walked almost bent double under the weight of the containers, but Eva carried them both effortless, hips swaying back and forth with the movement of the milk pails.

"What? Elsa has a stomach-ache?" Kristoff asked, and Anna burst out laughing as Elsa's face went beet red. "_What?_"

"So what did she want? More _favours?_" Anna managed to make the word sound so much worse than it was.

Kristoff blushed. Anna was always taunting him, but what was he supposed to do? The stuff they asked him to do was always reasonable. Carry this here, leave that there. It was stuff he did anyways, so why not help out when they asked him? "I guess. Just to help carry from stuff between the stables is all."

Kristoff, as has been previously noted, is a bonehead.

* * *

"You'll get in trouble one day."

"We'll get _you_ in trouble one day, is what you mean?"

"Yeah," Kristoff admitted glumly. "Again." He'd shovelled dung for a month straight after the roof incident.

"You should thank us y'know, it must be pretty boring spending all your time with the animals."

"Animals," Kristoff started, "don't ask me to do dangerous things that get me trouble. Trouble might actually be the main reason I try to stay near them and away from the two of you."

"Well we think you're being silly, right Elsa?"

"Hmm?" Elsa looked up from feeding another carrot into Sven. Bigger than any of them now, the reindeer just stood there behind them as he was fed carrots and pet and scratched. Sven got a lot of leeway from being the sister's adopted pet, and he enjoyed every second of it. Anna sighed at her oblivious sister.

The three of them stood on the courtyard laid out at the front of the castle, just after the main doors. Anna liked to imagine if she stared hard enough one day the doors would just magically vanish and the town would be right there for her to run off to. Not that she would if they did. She was old enough to know why they were shut, and why so much of her childhood was being spent in the same building. She wouldn't abandon Elsa like that. When Elsa left the castle so would she, and not before.

"You should get a dog," Kristoff suggested. _Then you could stop bothering me and making Sven get fat on carrots._

"A dog?"

"Yes! A great huge dog. Like the hunting ones the nobles own." Anna could see it now. All teeth and claws and muscle. A good dog for a queen. "One that could protect you from anything."

"I have you for that," Elsa said with a smile, and stroked Anna's arm. Another jolt ran through her and she winced.

"Still got your stomachage? _Oww!" _Kristoff rubbed his arm where Anna had punched him. "What?"

"Shut up Kristoff, this is girl stuff."

"Oh, well, if it's _that time_ then the milkmaid is right, there's stuff you can do to lessen the cramps." He looked between the two sisters, who were both staring at him open-mouthed. "What? I've lived with trolls. I've lived with the servants. I've been surrounded by women most of my life." They both continued to stare at him. "Come _on_, I'm a little slow but I'm not an _idiot._ _OWWW!"_

"Sorry, habit," Anna said, and then dropped deep into thought. "Stay right here!"

"Stay here, where are you-" but Elsa stopped speaking as Anna ran out of earshot. "…going?"

"Off again," Kristoff said. "Bet you a carrot she's gone to get you some help." She didn't need to reply. They both knew it. "Are you alright?"

Elsa knew he wasn't asking about her pain. Elsa sighed as Kristoff the friend and occasional punching-bag became Kristoff the confidant. "I almost got into a fight this morning."

"With your par- with their majesties?"

"I wish I could make them understand." She didn't know how many times she had said the exact same thing. She felt like she just couldn't get through to them, and sadness was ever so slowly making its way into anger. She wanted to grab her parents and just let loose. Make the entire castle into a giant beautiful snowflake. Make a storm whirl around them in perfect circles. Every time she tried to show them how beautiful it was – how beautiful _she_ was – they threw new chains and limits over her. Only Anna, with a piece of Elsa nestled close within her heart, truly understood. But Anna was so young and barely understood the trouble Elsa had with their parents. Kristoff was her confessor.

"Elsa…" Years had finally beaten out the habit of Kristoff calling her 'your majesty' when they were alone. "Have you tried just…listening to them?"

"Of course I have," she said, exasperated. "I've listened to them for _years_ now! They just…I just…" _It's who I am. It's a part of me. When they're afraid and scared of it they're afraid and scared of me. When they call it a curse they're calling me a curse._

Since he had come down to the castle on a favour from Pabbie to the king (that alone something he had never thought possible) he'd learned more about the princesses of Arendelle than anyone else except their royal majesties and maybe Kai and Gerda. He'd never met people so were so unlike one another and yet got along so well together. Anna loved the outdoors, she liked people, and she liked things that moved and lived and breathed. She had a mean trickster's streak that age hadn't broken down yet that teetered between being charming and reckless, and a small part of her that wasn't often seen held a fierce and bloody temper reserved only for bullies, people who talked badly about her sister, and people who really, really, _really_ got in her way. When you asked her sit down and do something she would ask why, and if the answer didn't make sense she'd argue until it either did or she didn't have to do it anymore.

Elsa was the opposite. If Anna was a sun that shone whether you wanted it to or not, Elsa was the moon that only appeared when she was good and ready. Her amazing (pretty, enchanting, _beautiful_) powers kept her away from others, and turned herself into her best friend (well, apart from Anna). Kristoff had a best friend who couldn't talk back to him, so he understood totally. If asked Elsa would have called Kristoff a friend too, but Kristoff was, as had been duly noted by many in the castle, a bonehead. The same power that drove others away lifted herself up in her own eyes. Elsa knew that she could soar higher than anyone, if only the people around her would let her.

"They're afraid _for_ you, not _of_ you," Kristoff said as he saw Elsa sinking deeper and deeper into herself.

Elsa wished she could believe that, she really did. She felt something warm and furry on her cheek, Sven licking at her. But today it didn't bring her any joy.

_One day I'll show them. _She looked at the giant gates and like Anna she saw past them, to the city beyond.

_I'll show them all._

* * *

"Hello? Eva?"

The milkmaid looked up and brushed the sweat and hair from her eyes as Anna walked into the kitchen. She ignored the black look from the head chef she had once stolen an ice-knife from, and walked straight over to the brown-haired older girl.

Eva stood and curtsied. "Your majesty?"

Anna glanced over at the rest of the room. Even with minimal staff the kitchens were always loud and messy. "I need your help." She realised she was shifting her feet around on the floor and stopped. "Please." _It's for Elsa._

Eva stared into Anna's eyes for a moment, and then just nodded. She turned back to the waif and said a few words, then gestured at the princess to follow.

Anna had explored – and stole from – the kitchens extensively, and the small room Eva led her towards was one of her favourite. It wasn't much, basically a few rows of shelves, a chest-high wooden table and a small chair which Eva put outside the room before closing the door. The smell inside was heavenly. Small bags and jars of herbs and spices mingled in the air around them like Elsa's snow swept through the gardens, and if Anna closed her eyes and inhaled she could imagine herself in places she had never heard of. Passing ships and merchants had sold the kingdom the leaves and dust that wouldn't grow in the cold climates, and the spices room was where those treasures were kept to stop them accidentally dusting the rest of the food. Nutmeg and cinnamon and things even rarer that didn't get taken down from the shelves except for very special occasions. Vanilla and something called 'saffron' that wasn't just a colour but something that could have been brought down from heaven itself.

"Watch me."

Anna did so as Eva went through the shelves. If this room was a kind of heaven then Eva waltzed through it like an angel. Anna had expected her to go the higher shelves that even she was smart enough to know not to 'borrow' from, but instead Eva stuck to the lower wooden decks, and Anna watched as she slow-danced across the shelves, picked up things she had seen dotted around the castle grounds. Dandelion and horsetail, yams and yarrow stalks. Eva turned back with a handful of them all and showed Anna.

"Watch me."

Anna did so, fascinated as the girl barely older than her worked magic. A jar of warm water appeared from somewhere by magic and Anna looked on as the herbs were placed in a small stone bowl, and Eva gestured over at her.

"Come, your majesty."

"Me? I don't know how to-"

"You should learn. For your sister and yourself," Eva said with a soft smile.

Out of her element and the aroma of the room making her feel more than a little light-headed, she stood in front of the table and felt a breath on the back of her neck as Eva stood behind her and a pair of warm hands were placed over her own.

"Like this."

Anna let herself be led by the older girl as Eva showed her how to make an infusion from the common herbs, but only half of her was paying attention to the instructions the milk-maid was giving to her. The other half of Anna could do nothing but focus on the sensations of the other girl behind her. All her life had been spent among a small number of people, and of all of them only three of them had ever really gotten close to her, and of her three family only Elsa gave more than a passing hug or a touch on the hand. Ever since she had been carried down from the mountain Anna knew she was warmer compared to other people and that other people – but not Elsa, never Elsa – felt colder to her, but Eva touched her skin and there was no chill there, only a similar warmth to her own. As Eva whispered instructions and moved their hands together Anna felt the breath whispering over her neck, the smooth touch of the fingers that guided her own, every contour of her chest against her back as they lightly pressed together. Anna felt like she could have fallen backwards and melted into her. She felt hot, like the sun was beating down on her from behind. She felt her eyes close as Eva's hands moved hers into the warm water and carefully crushed the herbs and squeezed them together.

"…like that. Do you see?"

The words jerked her out of her reverie and she almost shoved Eva out of the way. They tried to say "yes, thank you," but they came out of her voice as more squeaks than words. She held the small jar of herbs to her chest like a cross to ward off evil, as a hand grabbed for the door. Eventually her shaking hands managed to find it, and she swung the door open. "Thanksforallyourhelp_goodbye_!" she blurted out as she left, and the last thing she saw before she practically bolted for the kitchen was Eva smiling back at her sweetly, those soft hands tracing idle shapes onto the wooden table behind her.

* * *

"Anna, are you alright? You've barely eaten."

Elsa watched as the same scene played itself out again at dinner, with her own starring role replaced with her little sister. When Anna had presented her with that little nasty-looking liquid at first Elsa had thought some practical joke was being played, but Anna had sworn with a blush on her face that it wasn't one, and that was that. Whatever magic Anna had learned when she had ran off was almost as good as her own though, and Elsa's meal was already half-finished.

"Yes mother," Anna replied, clearly lying. She dropped her fork. "I'm sorry, I don't feel so good. Can I go?" She stood as their mother nodded and left the table walking so fast it was almost a jog. Elsa didn't bother asking, she just stood and went after her.

"Anna, what's wrong?" she asked when she caught up to her in the corridor outside their rooms.

Anna wouldn't meet her eyes. "Nothing, something I ate."

_Liar._ In her mind she went back through the events of the day. It didn't take long. "Anna, where did you learn how to make that stuff you gave me? Wait, no, never mind. Did you drink any yourself?"

"…Yes," Anna said.

Elsa brought Anna in for a hug, and Anna didn't stop her. "Anna listen, you'll catch up with me soon okay? Don't...don't go looking for that kind of trouble on your own."

Anna just nodded, wrapped up in her big sister. She felt safe and warm there, like she was encased in a perfect shell to keep her from harm. "Thanks sis," she whispered, and hugged back in response.

Finally Elsa let go. "Go and get some sleep, I'll tell mother and father not to expect you back tonight."

Anna wiped a tear from her eye and waved as Elsa walked back to the dining room. She turned back to go to her own room. She hadn't been lying, exactly. She really _had_ tasted just a little of the thing that Eva had given her, on some strange flight of imagination in case the woman was a spy sent to poison them both. But that wasn't the only reason her stomach felt like butterflies were running through it.

Anna fell to sleep that night with the usual thoughts and dreams to take her to sleep; knights and dragons and brave soldiers and battles with evil sorceresses to win the hand of a handsome prince. A couple – not all of them, just a few – had a slightly different ending tonight though.

_Maybe rescuing a beautiful princess wouldn't be so bad either._

* * *

_A small Frozen/Happy Potter crossover ficlet up on my tumblr this week in lieu of chapter notes, of which there really aren't any. Check it out if that's a crossover you like or you follow the #exolvo tag._


	7. Hunger Pains

M for sex and violence.

* * *

Kai smiled as he watched Anna. The girl was practically hopping up and down on her toes as they stood outside the door.

"Patience dear, she'll be out when she's ready," Gerda said with a smile. Anna had been so giddy she had practically shoved her way half-dressed out of her room. Gerda had tried to force something frilly over her head but Anna had been faster and woken up earlier. Now the girl stood outside her big sister's door dressed almost like a boy; a green corseted jacket on top of some – and Gerda had _no_ idea how they had found their way into Anna's wardrobe, although one name appeared as an immediate suspect – green leathery trousers. Gerda had tried her best by wrapping a shawl around the girl but she simply was _not_ presentable.

Anna paced back and forward with a smile on her face, and not just for the reason that Gerda and Kai thought. After a careless sentence from a servant Anna had been a girl with a mission. She had spent the rest of the week exploring the castle high and low, not just idle exploration to stave away the black boredom that consumed her but with a purpose now. Daddy – no, he was _father_ now, mustn't forget – had smiled when she said she was looking for ideas for Elsa's birthday present. She wasn't really lying. She _had_ been looking for the perfect birthday present for Elsa, but it wasn't inspired by any item she had seen. In one hand she clutched a small wrapped box containing a tiny marble ballerina figure, something she knew Elsa would _like._ It wasn't the real birthday present though.

She had a surprise waiting for Elsa, one she knew Elsa would _love._

"Good morning your majesty."

Wrapped up in her own excitement Anna had missed it. She snapped her head around to see Elsa closing the door beside her, a look of surprise on her face that quickly turned to pleasure as Anna rushed forward and hugged her.

"Happy birthday!"

Elsa smiled and rubbed at Anna's head. "Thanks sis. What did you get me?" She took the box from the outstretched hand and opened it carefully, the red and blue paper falling away to show… "It's beautiful Anna, thank you."

"I know you liked the ballet so I thought this would be nice! I wrote a little message on the bottom too, you can read it later _c'mon!"_ And she dragged Elsa away before the older girl could complain, only managing to pass the marble figurine off to Gerda before she was dragged to breakfast.

* * *

"Happy birthday dear."

A hug from father and a kiss to the forehead from mother was the best Elsa got from her parents. She didn't mind or pay much attention to the idle chatter during breakfast, mainly because she was still wondering about the tiny little figurine from Anna. Elsa had no particular love or hate for the ballet, she would simply rather read the stories they were telling in the books themselves, rather than watch people re-enact it via dance. The marble figurine was nice enough, and so was the message on the bottom of the carved wooden pedestal it stood on (_To Elsa, love, Anna)_ but there was no special significance in it for her. _So why?  
_

In comparison the presents from her parents were much more breath-taking. From her mother an ornate golden telescope that Elsa took a single glance at as the paper fell away and fell in love with immediately. From her father a giant book that…

Well, _one_ present that was more breath-taking. The years had made Elsa an excellent liar and the expression on her face didn't change, but her heart sunk a little as she saw the title of the huge illustrated tome her father had given her. She recognised the name because there were a dozen copies in the castle library. She didn't know for sure but she would make the guess there was one copy for every crown princess in the last hundred or so years. She would also make the guess her parents would not react well if they knew she had read them.

_A Young Woman's Geneaology_

She gave a happy sigh and smiled as she idly flipped a page. "Thank you, father." Faces stared back out at her from the heavy pages. Royalty or the equivalent of every country in Europe going back three generations were printed on every inch of paper, beautifully illustrated. Ornate scrollery and flowing lines between pages traced paths of ancestry to the modern day. Elsa knew that when she flipped to the back there would be two final pages there. One of them she knew would have her own picture there, with her own details, and she would be suitably awe-struck and would gasp for her parents when she did so. The final page would be blank, just an oval and some blank space underneath. A line would link the two portraits.

She flipped the pages and made the gasp, and felt her father put a hand over her shoulder. "That's a very important space Elsa. We'll talk some more after your birthday."

"Of course father." _One day. I couldn't get a single day before this started?_

In another way she felt…better, almost? Like a small but consistent weight that she had been dragging around since the first time she had woken with bloody sheets underneath her. She was a royal princess and she knew what would be expected of her, beyond even what her parents had instructed her tutors to tell her. She could already see the conversation taking place in her head; there would be quiet words – probably with her mother, her father would be far too embarrassed – kept very non-specific. There would be talk of princes and kingdoms and alliances and obligations, but in the end the vague cloud of words would solidify and it would be there spelled out for her:

_You will marry a prince because the kingdom requires it._

She kept up the smile as she ate her breakfast – fluffy white bread and warm bacon instead of the usual toast and milk – and tried to push it out of her mind. Everyone at the table looked so happy instead of her. Her father and mother were talking quietly at the head of the table, and Anna was…

_At least you're not Anna._

Elsa felt rotten just thinking it, in the special way you hate yourself just a little when you think something you know is bad and know is true. When she married, a prince would be marrying _her_. _She_ would be queen and _she_ would rule and he, whoever he was, would rule _beside _her_._ Anna wouldn't have even that. Elsa knew how royalty worked. Anna was useful. A spare. Kept in reserve as something useful in case something happened to Elsa, and then as something traded for an alliance. She'd leave Arendelle and take her place _beside_ someone else, and that would be that.

_Unless the rules changed,_ a cold little voice whispered in her, but she ignored it. Sometimes she wished she had read less. Every book from that little section of the library had shown her a little more of the chains around them both. Chains that grew tighter by the day as Elsa neared her eighteenth birthday.

"Elsa, come along now."

And just like that breakfast was over, and Elsa stood away from her empty plate – but she didn't remember tasting a single bite of it – and followed her parents from the room.

Later in the day a servant, one of the trusted few, would come by to clean up after the royal family. The plate would be thrown away into the refuse, as would the tablecloth underneath it, the two of them having become so cold they had fused into a single object.

* * *

The play was one of Elsa's favourites; _A Midsummer Night's Dream._ The troupe had been brought in especially for the day, the main gates being opened ever-so-slightly to admit them in the night. Normally she would have loved to watch it, sitting as close she could to the stage and entranced while the men and women performed the story about love and marriage and farce and tragedy.

Or at least it had been her favourite when she was younger, and the main things she remembered had been the funny little fairy trickster Puck, and the beautiful fairy-queen Titania. Now the scenes she heard with greatest clarity were of the first act, not the second. The words drifted up to her from the makeshift stage below:

"Be it so she; will not here before your grace consent to marry with Demetrius, I beg the ancient privilege of Athens! As she is mine, I may dispose of her: Which shall be either to this gentleman or to her death, according to our law immediately provided in that case."

The words stung at her like a whip, and she turned ready to be furious at her father, only to see him cringing at the words as well.

_Good._

He coughed and put an arm around her shoulder. "Let's talk for a few minutes, Elsa," he said, and gently led her away from the balcony they were watching from. It wouldn't have been worth the _risk_ to have his little daughter so close or visible to outsiders of course, not where a little mistake might have shown them something he didn't want them to see. She kept quiet though, and let herself be led around the courtyard until they were standing in a draughty little guard tower that overlooked the town beyond. In all the years Elsa had been looking out over it, it had barely changed. Arendelle might have been frozen in time for all that was different down there. _I wonder if the rest of the world moves so slowly._

"Elsa, I know we've always talked about great responsibilities…"

"Yes father?"

The king looked down at his oldest daughter. "You'll be coming of age – _truly _of age – soon, and there are going to be some great changes in your life."

"Like what?" Elsa could see her father wrestling with the words. Part of her wanted to try and help him find them, but another part wanted to let him struggle with it, and lately the latter part had been winning. _Like weights on my back._

"There are going to be a lot more people in your life soon Elsa."

Elsa felt her chest hitch up at the words. "What do you mean?"

"You'll be…when a princess turns eighteen there are…events. Yes! Events that need to happen."

She's read the books. The word her father is looking for but doesn't know is 'debutante', and that word drags behind it a whole lot of other words. Some of them good, some of them bad, some of them to Elsa distasteful, but she shoves them to one side right now because one of those chains of words starts at _debutante ball_ and continues on to _guests_ and ends at _open gates._

Her father looked down at her and saw the smile suddenly plastered over his eldest daughter's face. "Elsa? Are you alright..._Elsa?"_ he says in surprise as she rushes forward and embraces him around the waist. King Agdar looked down into the mass of platinum-blonde hair hugging him fiercely and smiled.

Her face hidden and buried in her father's chest, Elsa smiles too.

Neither of them are smiling for the same reasons.

* * *

"Congratulations. Here."

"On what? Surviving another year? Thank you. HEY!"

Kristoff's thrown carrot is intercepted mid-air as Anna hops around Elsa and grabs it.

"That's my birthday present."

"That's her birthday present."

"All I get is a carrot?"

"All I _have_ is carrots."

"Then give me that other one you're holding."

"That's Sven's birthday present."

"Reindeer's don't have birthd-"

"Happy birthday Sven!"

Anna hugged the reindeer around the neck and he responded by trying to lick her face off. Anna laughed and just danced away from the sandpapery tongue.

"You're very cheerful. Remind me whose birthday it was again?" Kristoff said, watching the girl hop around as Sven chased her around the stall. Even the stables are clean today for Elsa's birthday, and Kristoff's usual reindeer odour is barely noticeably.

"Thanks," he said as Anna pointed this out. He turned to Elsa. "So is this when we…what?"

He stops talking as Anna's eyes opened wide and she rushed towards him flailing her hands at him in a very unladylike manor. "Shhhh!"

"'Shhh' what?" Elsa asked, looking between them. "Anna?"

"What?"

Elsa watched the pair for a second, just to see their awful, awful poker faces. "What are the pair of you hiding?" she asked, crossing her hands.

"Nothing," Anna said. "Nothing at all."

"Liars. But fine."

"What are you doing today?" Anna asked.

"Cleaning up after the play," Kristoff replied. "Somehow ten people can make a hell of a lot of mess."

"It's culture," Elsa chided him.

"Culture is a bunch of trees where they shouldn't be then, all dropping leaves everywhere, and horse-droppings somehow."

Elsa caught Kristoff staring at her, and looked away. "What? What is it?"

"Are you alright Elsa?"

Quickly Anna turned to her sister, mortified that something might be wrong with Elsa and she hadn't been the first one to pick up on it. "Elsa? What's wrong?"

"…Father was talking about marriage," Elsa replied eventually. They didn't know it but they were the first people she had even mentioned it too. Somehow the idea of talking to Gerda or Kai about the subject was just distasteful.

"_What?"_

"Not _actual_ marriage," Elsa said quickly. "Just the idea of it coming up soon."

"Well, you're a princess, it's kind of what princesses do," Kristoff replied, already dodging out of the way of Anna's arm.

For her part, Anna was looking at her intently. "What's wrong with that?" she asked. "You get to marry a handsome prince, and rule the kingdom."

Kristoff was standing next to her and couldn't see the look in her eyes. Only Elsa saw that. A spark of something. "Well, yes, but…"

"That sounds like a fairy tale," Kristoff said.

Anna squirmed. "Don't you want to?"

Elsa sighed. "Yes but…well…I'm not _against_ it."

The pair watched her as she kept giving out single word answers, her discomfort obvious to them both. Kristoff had no idea why, and assumed it was something he didn't need to know about, himself being a poor servant and her being the crown princess. Anna had no idea why, and assumed it was something her sister wasn't telling her, and decided she was going to find out the second she could.

She already knew how she was going to do it. She just had to wait.

In the meantime… "I forgot something," Anna said, smiling at her two friends. "I'll be right back."

Elsa and Kristoff watched her leave. "Where's _she_ off to?" he muttered.

"Who knows," Elsa replied. "Probably realised she's hungry and went to steal something from the kitchen," she said, almost entirely accurately.

"Your majesty, princess Elsa?"

"Yes Kristoff?" Elsa asked, looking at the tall blonde servant. Even if he still spent a lot of his time around the stables he had stopped being a boy a year or so ago when he had finally out-grown some of the castle guards, and his official title on the pay-scrolls was _ice harvester/general serv._ now. The bales of hay he hauled around the castle grounds had been replaced by huge blocks of ice, as Sven and Kristoff went off to bring the stuff back from the north mountain. _Maybe with someone like Kristoff it wouldn't be so bad,_ Elsa thought, as he withdrew the hand from behind his back.

"Happy birthday. Sorry I couldn't wrap it."

It's beautiful. A small crocus flower, carved out of ivory – or most likely bone – and then polished to perfect, hanging from a thin chain that's probably steel or iron rather than silver. It's still beautiful though, and she smiles as she looks at it and puts the chain over her neck. "Thank you Kristoff."

"Hey, I figure its small payback for everything you've shown me since I got here."

"Here's one more then." She takes the small pendant in one hand and lifts it up to her lips. A soft gust is all that it takes, and the white bone is peppered with shining blue icicles like gems. When she drops it back to her neckline is sparkles there in blue and white. Elsa can see the breath catch in the man's throat.

"Wow," he whispers.

"And now it's your turn and you can tell me what you two are plotting."

His mind tries to make a ninety-degree turn to keep up with Elsa, and trips up and falls down. "I…umm…what?"

"_Kristoff…"_

Figuring that with the object of fear absent its safe enough to talk, he raises his hands in defeat. "I really did promise not to tell you, but…"

"Well?"

"Anna gave you a present already?"

"Yes." The small confusing figure.

"Well let's just say you should go take a _real_ good look at it."

"Why?"

"Because it wasn't her _real_ gift."

* * *

Anna turned up at dinner late and red-faced. "Sorry! Sorry I'm late!"

"Really Anna, you didn't need to run all the way here for the cooking," her mother teased with a smile.

Anna sat down at the table and brusheed a lock of hair out of her face as she picked up a spoon. She was about to dig into her potatoes when she felt something kick at the side of her leg, and looked sideways at Elsa. Her older sister was staring deeply into her own meal, but a hand drifted up to her shirt and tapped at the button there.

Anna fixed her shirt as quietly and subtly as she could.

"How was the day my dear?" the queen asked.

Elsa smiled. "It was lovely," she said, and meant it. The conversation with her father had been washed away by the rest of the day, as the entire castle had come together to try and make it as happy as possible for Elsa, for a daughter that most of them would never have.

But Elsa wasn't thinking about the wonderful day she had just had, she was thinking about the little Ballerina figure, and the small display stand it had stood on. The small display stand she had removed, to find the bottom circle of marble, the only remnant of the small cylinder it had been carved from, and the message cut into the bottom.

_kitchens meat room midnight dress for cold_

_dress for cold_

* * *

And she had. Elsa crept through the castle, sneaking from corridor to corridor in a blue woollen jacket covering something similar to what Anna had been wearing all day, only in blues and whites instead of greens and browns and reds.

She opened the kitchen door as silently as she could, wincing at the _creak_ it made every millimetre she moved it. Eventually it was wide enough to slip through, and Elsa found herself in the kitchens of Arendelle. Usually the busiest part of the castle, the stillness and darkness make the place ten times as sinister as in daylight, racks of gleaming cookware and knives reflecting what little light there is to-

"Boo."

Elsa clamped her hand over her mouth to stop herself from screaming and barely stopped her feet leaving the floor. She turned, heart pounding, to see Anna grinning at her. She slapped her shoulder with a mitten-covered hand. "Not funny Anna!"

In reply Anna stuck her tongue out. "Yes it was."

"So what's my present?" Elsa asked, anger at being frightened like a five year-old instantly replaced by excitement and anticipation.

Anna grabbed her hand and whispered with a twinkle in her eye: "Follow me."

Elsa let herself be led passively through the winding turns of Arendelle Castle's lower corridors. Built when an attack from a neighbouring country wasn't just an idle thought but an expected thing, they were short and twisted and thin, enough to let a single attacker through one at a time to be skewered by defenders from all sides. A good plan for a rich country under threat of pillaging from raiders, but less so for a peaceful trading country whose greatest problem was trying to get the chickens to the dining table before they cooled down.

"…wondered how people got in and out and I thought 'hey, there's no way there'd only be one way in or out' right?" Anna said, not even checking to see if Elsa was listening.

As they walked – well, as one walked and one was dragged – the candles on the walls got shorter and shorter, and the clean floors became dusty and ill-swept. They were in the oldest and lowest part of the castle. "Anna…"

"…so I got to thinking about the best way to get out during a big battle right? There's no way it'd be near the front 'cause that's where the fighting would be, and so…"

Elsa smacked into Anna's back as the redheaded girl suddenly stopped.

"Here!" Anna said proudly, and gestured with both hands at…

"It's a wall," Elsa said, unimpressed. She hadn't really been paying attention.

Anna strode forward and started running her hands across the stone surface. She giggled. "Nope."

Comprehension finally dawned on a tired crown princess. "Anna, did you find…"

_Click_

"Yes!"

Anna stepped back and beamed in happiness as behind her the impassable stone wall just…_slid_ aside, like it was on the smoothest of ice, to show a dark corridor beyond. Elsa watched in amazement as a huge shape walked out of the darkness.

"Kristoff!?"

"Happy birthday your majesty," the servant said with a smile. He turned to Anna. "This is the dumbest idea you've had yet."

"It's the best you mean." Anna reached into the darkness and took out two small torches which she lit from the single burning candle on the wall, and handed one to Elsa, a small bag, and something long and thin rolled up in a cloth wrap.

Kristoff sighed. "You two will be the death of me."

"Where does it go?" Elsa asked, and received the answer she was dreaming of.

"Outside."

"Oh, _Anna_."

"I love you Elsa, happy birthday."

* * *

The stars were beautiful.

The stars had always been beautiful of course. Elsa had loved to stand in the darkened courtyard just as night fell and stare up at the sky as the red-and-golden sunset faded, and was replaced by the dark curtain of night and the twinkling motes of light peppered through it. Somehow though they were even more beautiful from outside of the castle, as if the entire stone edifice had a net of fog over it, and now Elsa was seeing them for the first time.

The tunnel had ended not in the city, that would have been far too close for an escaping royal to feel safe, but actually _past_ it by some miracle of stone and wood that made Elsa nervous when she stopped to think of the water above her. Eventually the tunnel had wound and climbed – more than once Elsa had had to clamber over a broken stare or hug the wall to climb the steep slope where water had washed the stairs away – so much that Elsa had wondered if they were climbing the north mountain itself. But the nameless engineers who had built the castle had built well, and there had been no blockages to stop them.

Finally after what seemed like hours Anna had clamped her hands over Elsa's eyes as she had felt air wash over her cheeks. Her little sister had said "Trust me," and Elsa had allowed herself to be led blind out of the tunnel. She had felt snow under her boots and the wind pulling at her hair, and finally Anna had twisted her around and said _look Elsa_ and taken the hands from her eyes, and then the entire world was laid before Elsa. They stood halfway up the small wooded hills sat in front of the colossal northern mountain like guards before the queen, looking down on Arendelle. The castle and the town were laid out for them like a picnic, illuminated by torchlight.

"Anna, it's beautiful," Elsa whispered as she stared down at her kingdom. Even the air felt purer, fresher here outside the castle walls. She imagined she could see the individual guards carrying the torches on their nightly rounds. She felt tears prick her eyes and wiped them off before they could freeze in the night air.

"Are you okay?" Anna asked, wide teal eyes looking into Elsa's with worry.

"I'm just so happy," she managed to blubber out, and wrapped her arms around her sister as they both slipped to the ground. "Thank you so much Anna."

The two sat there in blissful silence, just staring down at the town and castle. Elsa felt more at peace here in the cold and wet snow than she had in months of comfort and plenty. She felt like she could have stayed there forever. Something was tugging at her mind though. It took her a second, then she realised what it was;

_This is the closest you've ever been. There's nothing between us now._

"Anna?" Elsa said, whispering.

"What?"

"Can we get a better view?"

Anna followed Elsa's eyes, and stared up at the north mountain, just visible through the canopy of trees. She looked at her elder sister and saw the light of the summit reflected there. "Sure sis, but we need to go back soon or someone will notice we're gone." She stood and brushed snow from her jacket. Anna smiled slyly. "Can you make it a little easier for us?"

* * *

They laughed and danced through the forest. Every step Elsa made onto the tundra throwing ice and snow out of their paths and into the trees where it re-froze, making glistening jewels of ice and water where they landed. Elsa swept her hands through the air like a conductor, the powdery white whirling around them but never touching them, the centre of the their own personal whirlwind. They carved a magical path through the forest that anyone looking from the town would have seen; a shining path of perfectly frozen trees surrounded by the plain white and green of the rest. They didn't care though, they were lost in the moment.

Every few seconds Elsa would look back at the town growing every smaller, so small she could almost hold it in her hands, and then back up at the northern edifice before her that whispered to her. And the summit, above it all, the snow streaming from it like a royal cloak.

Anna laughed and fell to the ground, exhausted. "Enough Elsa! I'm too tired." She giggled and made a snow angel underneath her. "Let's fly back down."

Elsa collapsed next to her and the two stared up at the sky. "This is the best birthday present _ever_ Anna."

Anna licked her lips and ate the snow from them. "If we-"

Whatever words Anna was about to say next were drowned out as both Elsa and Anna heard a noise behind them. A low rumble that travelled through the ground and through their skin and right into their bones.

_Avalanche_ was Elsa's first thought, and the blood in her heart ran cold. She didn't know if she could control that much ice and snow. It was winter and the sleets of summer were meant to have frozen safely into glaciers, but they had been making a _lot _of noise, maybe enough to set a smaller one off? Elsa reached inside herself and felt better when she felt the power waiting there for her. If it was-

"Elsa…" Anna whispered, and in one word Elsa knew it wasn't an avalanche. She turned and gasped.

The bear was old. Even from a few meters away Elsa could hear it wheezing, and see the white fur that practically covered it. As she watched it stared right back at her with black pus-entrusted eyes, tongue lolling from its mouth, cracked and broken. This deep into winter it should have been hibernating with the rest of Arendelle's wildlife. It hadn't been able to gather enough food before the freeze had set in and now it was doomed, wandering the forests looking for whatever it could to try and survive, stripping the bark from trees to try and find berries or bird nests.

_It's starving,_ she realised, and then she felt real fear.

Then fear wasn't removed as Anna reached for the small roll of cloth at her side and drew out the sword she had had Kristoff mis-place for her. Not an ice-knife this time, it was a real blade like the kind of the guards used, old like everything else in the castle but kept razor-sharp. In Anna's hands it looked huge, almost too big to hold.

"Don't worry Elsa, I'll protect you," she whispered, and even though Elsa could see how brave she was trying to be, she was exactly as scared as she was. _The brave knight protects the princess._ Elsa could see Anna's dream coming true in front of her and she was terrified by it.

_No no no._

The bear crept closer, the growl turning from a low rumble to something else, and Elsa and Anna scrambled backwards away from it. Elsa could feel it in her stomach. Her arms and hands tingled.

_I'm not a defenceless princess. I'm strong. I'm powerful. I have-_

The bear stood up on its hind-legs and roared. The sound seemed to coat the entire world around them as the doomed creature charged forward. And so did Anna.

"_ANNA!"_

Anna was afraid. Terrified. But both of those things were grabbed and shaken and thrown aside by worry and anger and she ran forward, sword held behind her. The bear in front of her took up all her senses, shining in white and brown as the rest of the world darkened, and there was just it and herself charging towards each other.

_I'm going to die,_ a small part of her cried, but it was drowned out by…

By…

Happiness?

Righteousness?

…

Something deeper?

And then suddenly there it was, inches away, as it reared up again drawing back a paw that could have weighed more than her, and was swiping down with sharp claws to end her.

Anna wasn't trained. She was an expert archer but her parents had taken steps to make sure every single person in the castle knew better than to let Anna so much as _touch_ a blade. But how hard could it be? There was an end you held and an end you pointed at other people, and you swung away until the point end was inside them.

What saved Anna was two things, but she would only remember one: The bear was huge, but it was starving and made from hunger and half-blind from age. The paw that would have torn her face from her skull went over her head because she was so short. Suddenly Anna was right there next to it, holding a sharp blade and with only herself between a mouthful of rotting bear teeth and her sister.

The second thing was the bear stumbling, when suddenly the land it had spent its whole life on betrayed it and icy claws rose up from the snow to grab its legs. The next step forward that would have crushed Anna never materialised, as with feet frozen to the soil it flailed around and crashed sideways to the ground, clawing for purchase as it landed on its belly. It roared in pain and anger as it looked up, and that was the last thing it saw.

It felt good. More than good, it felt _right._ Anna watched herself like a dream as the blade slid through the bear's flesh and skull like a knife through butter. It reared up, bellowing like a fallen god as the steel rammed through its eye-socket and into the brain and Anna felt herself lifted to her fee with it. She kept her grip on the blade screaming out for strength and pushed as hard as she could, and her reward was immediate as the bear'sspasms shook the blade through its face. Hot blood gushed from the creature's ruined face and covered her and she gasped from the heat of it. It flowed from the dying thing's wound and down her hair and face, across her clothes and down under her shirt and from there across the leather pants she was wearing, soaking every inch of her. In the storybooks she had read wounds were bloodless things, maybe a dramatic stab in the hero's arm would draw a small line of red. Nothing like this. The beast's frantic dying heart seemed to be pumping every drop out of it, and Anna was saturated in the beast.

The old bear reared up one last time and gave a final bellow into the heavens, the moon behind it seeming giant and overwhelming, and Anna stared up at it as its champion and killer. And there it stayed, standing and howling at the moon, as around it huge spikes of ice burst from the ground like flowers after rain, skewering it and holding it there. Behind her Elsa's hand pointed at the bear, as if she were a general commanding the mountain itself to annihilate her target.

Anna licked her lips and tasted the rich copper of its blood on herm as the bear's life finally left, and it stood there pinned to the sky, dead.

"_ANNA ANNA ANNA ANNA-_"

She was bowled to the ground by her sister as Elsa cannoned into her, crying incoherently. Cold snow underneath her replaced the hot blood covering her.

"You saved me," Elsa whispered, sparing a single glance at the bear. No majesty or terror now, just a lump of dead fur and flesh. She wanted to kill it all over, make her ice stab and skewer it until it died again.

"_You_ saved _me_," Anna whispered, looking past Elsa's shoulder at the ice that covered the dead thing's feet. She felt Elsa moving her head around staring into her eyes, her face, her arms, asking _are you okay are you okay_ over and over again. Her mouth didn't want to work properly or she would have told Elsa she felt fine. Better than fine. Her right hand still gripped the blood-covered sword that had killed the bear and she tightened her grip on it. She felt better than she could ever remember feeling. Every inch of her seemed to tingle. Giant worried blue eyes looked into her own. Even if Elsa had been bleeding from a dozen wounds she would still have worried about her first. She loved her so much.

"Anna are you really okay?"

She licked her lips again. "I'm really okay. I-_whoa."_

Elsa lifted her up and practically hoisted Anna onto her back. "We're…we're going home," she said, voice shaking. She could feel the blood trickling down her back from Anna's clothes. The past few hours of heavenly bliss had been erased and replaced with worry for Anna. She spared one final glance at the north mountain before turning back and practically running in the direction Anna was pointing, back towards the tunnel exit. The mountain whispered in her ear as she left it behind:

_I will wait._

* * *

"She's fine," were the first words on Elsa's mouth the second the darkness receded, to be replaced with the single candle of the stone wall.

The look on Kristoff's face would have been amusing under any circumstances and ran right through the spectrum, from _confusion_ to _fear_ to _worry_, bypassing _anger_ then doubling-back to land on _worry_ again, where it stayed. Elsa's words did little to dislodge it.

"What did I say _what did I tell you?"_ he said as Elsa explained what had happened. The story of how Anna had charged the bear like something out of a fairy-story made him gasp with admiration for just a second, before the entire weight of the situation landed back on him.

"Be quiet and help me," Elsa whispered, as she lowered Anna from her shoulder. The younger princess stood there trying to tell them both she was fine, honestly, but they both ignored her.

"What do we do?" Kristoff asked, looking at the pair. They looked like they had been through a war. Anna was coated in blood, head to foot. The green leathers and wools she had worn were soaked through, and even after an hour the blood was still fresh and dripping, the cold and damp stone passage having dried it out not at all. Elsa was better but still a long way from good. Her back from red and sticky from having carried Anna, and her clothes were wet and damp everywhere else. If he had been told they were refugees fleeing a war he would have believed it.

Anna gasped for air from on her hands and knees, and it took Kristoff a second to realise what she was saying. "A bath?" he asked in confusion.

Enlightenment dawned. "The servant's quarters have baths right?"

"Why would Kristoff know?" Anna said, and giggled from the floor. She sounded drunk, and she was but not on alcohol.

Kristoff nodded, and ran off without waiting for further instructions. It would be daylight in a few hours, and not even God would save him from the wrath of the king if any evidence of this night remained when the maids came to wake the princesses.

"Anna, are you alright?" Elsa asked again, for what might have been the hundredth time that night.

Anna waved her hands in the air. She couldn't communicate what she was feeling. She felt fine. More than fine. She felt like she was floating on air and buried in the ground all at the same time. The melted snow and blood that covered her felt like a victory cloak. Something that threatened her and her sister, and she had destroyed it utterly.

She had killed to protect Elsa, the same way the ice Elsa had given her heart an icy armour to protect _her_, and that same heart knew it had felt good.

_No wonder all the boy want to grow up to be knights, if they get to feel like this all the time._

_I want to feel like this more._

Kristoff ran back. "We're drawing up baths now, come on. We'll burn the clothes."

Elsa's head snapped up. "_We?_"

Kristoff looked bashful, but didn't look away. "You're both girls, and I needed help," he said. "They're trustworthy, they'll stay quiet."

"They had better," Elsa whispered, and from the look in her eyes Kristoff knew he had better warn both Natalie and Eva that this time when he said _no gossip _he had really, _really_ meant it.

"Anna, come on," Elsa said, trying to grab her sister by the hand. But the blood and snow was too slippery, and she had to settle for levering her exhausted and delirious sister up from under her shoulders. Together Elsa and Kristoff managed to get her to some

Anna's skin burned as they did so. It felt like her heart was pumping at a million beats a second, and every drop of her blood roared in her ears. Was this how the bear had felt as she had killed it. Every time she moved her soaked leathers swept over her skin and she felt that exhilaration from all that was left of the thing she had ended. She feeling crept over her as she and Elsa and Kristoff walked through the servant's corridors as silently as they could, the entire castle sleeping around them and ignorant of what was happening.

Finally they reached a lone wooden door, and two more shadows materialised before them.

Kristoff nodded. "Thanks for coming."

The two servants stood there gaping at the princesses, one tired and haggard and the other blood-soaked and smiling. Both wonder of them what had happened and both knowing they would never dare ask.

"Your majesty, if you would follow me," Natalie the cook's assistant said, head down and not daring to look directly at the crown princess. Elsa let herself be led away, one hand only detaching from Anna's after there was no other choice.

"Here," Eva whispered softly, taking Anna under the arm that Elsa had vacated.

"Thanks," Kristoff said again. "Bring the clothes to the furnace, we'll burn them when this is all done," he said, and left.

Eva _tutted_ as the two were left alone. "Whatever will I do with you?" she whispered as she unlocked the small washroom door. It was remote and dark and not used much, just like the other one Elsa was being led to. Perfect. "Was this afternoon not enough for you?" she whispered.

Anna could feel the warmth and shape of the maid next to her as she was led into the dark room illuminated by a single candle, and the warm bath already drawn there. Eva unhooked herself from her charge and dipped a hand into the bathwater. The maid had dressed quickly and wore a simple white dress, without the usual assortment of corsetry, ruffles and aprons of a working servant, and Anna could see every curve and movement of her body underneath it. Eva turned and gestured towards the warm bath, one finger cocked at her.

_When princes killed the dragon they were given a prize right? Half the kingdom, or whatever._

Anna wanted a prize.

* * *

"Your majesty, come" Eva whispered, and what remained of Anna's will snapped like a broken twig.

Eva felt hands encircle her from behind to push her around roughly, and she turned to see Anna staring up at her, teal eyes wide and mouth parted ever so slightly. Before she could react or say anything Anna pushed forward until their bodies were touching, chest against chest and blood-soaked leather dress against thin cotton shirt, and Anna's head craned upward to stare into the maid's own, eyes lidded and heavy.

When Anna spoke Eva could hear the lust on her voice, thick like honey.

"Eva."

The kiss was nothing like any of the ones before. Not like the first troubled and nervous peck they had shared months ago when Anna had come again to the kitchen's spice room, the curiosity and girlish infatuation only barely winning out over nerves and fear. It wasn't like any of the ones they had shared since then either. The nervousness about the act itself had been replaced by the nervousness they would be caught, even as it lessened and they had grown more comfortable. But Eva had had enough men and women to know when something was being held back, and on their occassional short trysts Anna had had chains of obligation and tradition wrapped tightly around her. Tasting the young princess had been fun, but nothing more.

The Anna before her now wasn't that Anna.

Hands that would normally have been fidgeting behind her back grasped at her sides and clawed under the dress until Eva could feel blood-soaked palms caressing her belly. She was a good few inches taller than Anna and stronger besides but she felt herself pushed back by the heat and want of the younger girl. She felt water splash against her dress and twisted them both around so that instead of falling into the bath Eva found herself pushed back and back, and suddenly there was no more _back_ for her to go to, and Anna was crushing herself against Eva, forcing her lips apart, and Anna's tongue was inside her mouth lapping at her like a starving woman. Eva was forced to return the favour just to breath, and the two stood there against the stone wall, tasting each other in the warm heat of the washroom. Finally the kiss ended, and Anna drew a shuddering breath as she drew back from Eva, head thrown back and arms still wrapped around the girl's flanks. Anna's tongue that had been wrapped around Eva's still poked out of her mouth, coated in their saliva. She _panted._

_Like a bitch in heat,_ Eva thought to herself wonderingly. To have the princess of Arendelle hanging from her like that was…indescribable. But she had a job to do.

"Are you…satisfied, Anna?" Eva whispered, watching as Anna licked her lips. Her dress and chest was coated in blood from where Anna had pressed against and touched her and she knew she'd need her own both later, but first-

Suddenly Anna's head snapped forward again, and in her eyes there was no nervousness or fear. Only naked lust. "No," the princess whispered thickly, her hands still wandering around Eva's sides.

Eva kissed Anna on the forehead and grabbed her hands to dis-entangle them from under her dress. She turned away from Anna and back to the bath. "Not now. When you're older we- _AH!"_ Suddenly she was _dragged_ and pushed face-first back against the stone wall.

"_No,"_ Anna whispered again, and Eva could feel the younger girl pressing against her hard from behind. "More. _More._"

The hands that had been creeping around Eva's mid-section rose up and she could feel slippery warmth passing over her belly and ribcage, up past her sides and around until she could feel Anna's fingers clutching roughly at her breasts. Without waiting for permission or refusal rough fingers covered and gripped and twisted at her nipples and Eva gasped and twisted under the girl's hands as heat shot through her.

Anna's hunger was indescribable. She was ravenous. Something warm and dark was beating at her from lower than her heart, lower than her stomach, and it itched and itched and she needed to feed it but didn't know how. She opened her mouth and sucked at Eva's neck as her hands moved over Eva's breasts and scratched and slid over the gorgeous-feeling mounds, and beneath her the servant girl writhed and gasped. Anna had total power over her and it was intoxicating, in a way that the occasional glass of wine her father allowed her to have wasn't.

Underneath her hands Eva twisted as if there was some position that would let her escape from the assault the princess was making. Her breasts were red now under the dress, coated in blood of whatever accident Anna had been in, and her nipples felt sorer and sorer as the girl – just a _girl_ making her feel this way! – teased at them mercilessly. "Anna. _Anna!" _Suddenly the bottom dropped out of the world and the hands left her breasts, and with a crash and _thump_ Eva was on the ground and Anna was above her, straddling her.

"Call me _your majesty_," Anna whispered, staring down at the girl. She felt powerful, in control. The blood of the bear that still coated her seemed to seep into her bones and grant her strength. Underneath her legs Eva looked up at her like Anna was a goddess. The maid felt warm and good underneath her, blood-covered where Anna had been touching her. She felt the itch inside her growing and growing where her legs met Eva's belly. Without conscious thought she reached forwards and ripped the flimsy dress away from the panting milkmaid, revealing the pale skin and huge breasts beneath that rose and fell with every breath the she took. The itch turned into a burning then, and she knew she wanted it all, but frustration paused her hands. She wanted the girl underneath her and she would take her, but she didn't know _how._

Eva saw that in her eyes and sat up, breasts pushed into Anna's chest as their heads came together. "Like this, your majesty," she whispered, and her hands were at Anna's jacket and trousers and were untying and pulling and twisting until Elsa felt the cloth fall away from her skin and they were both naked together on the warm stone floor, the bath long forgotten. Eva's body twisted underneath Anna and she cried out as flesh flowed over flesh, and the insane heat and itch that was all of Anna's world heated up like the sun.

"Like this," Eva said lustily, and her hands drifted down, tracing circles on Anna's belly that made her gasp and quiver. She matched her movements and both of them were red-faced and panting for air, as Eva led her fingers on a dance past Anna's belly and down to her sternum and Anna matched her. Finally Eva's fingers went down and drifted over Anna's sex so lightly they barely touched at all, and Anna felt every muscle in herself twist and tense as the itch shot through her entire body. Her own fingers left Eva's body and she clawed at her belly as if the insane pressure there could be let out if she just dug a hole out through herself. Then Eva bucked up underneath her, the light touch turned into assault on her sex as she drove two fingers up as far as she could go into Anna, and the world ended around her.

Eva watched as the girl above her twisted and begged and moaned in words she wasn't even sure Anna knew she was making. Her own cunt was wet and ready but she ignored it in favour of watching the princess above her be reduced to a bundle of screaming nerves, back arched and bent back almost double, mouth opened to the world screaming silently as Eva pumped in and out of her again and again. She licked her lips as she watched the girl climb and climb and stay there. Eva had driven her to the edge and threw her off but she just…wasn't falling. Anna's legs gripped her sides with a crushing force as she clenched her teeth and tried to gulp for air at the same time. Dark red blood covered her from head to toe, dripping down her belly and past the princess's drenched lips. Her legs twitched as it flowed down and past her and onto Eva and the floor. Her hands moved around her own body as if looking for the source of the experience, tracing patterns in the warm blood. Eva had never seen anything like it.

"I…" Anna managed to say through her gasps. She was staring up at the ceiling but seeing none of it. Every inch of her body was screaming in fire and pleasure, and pain. It was like there was…something was _blocked_. The burning itch at her core wasn't going away, no matter how much she scratched or clawed at herself.

"Anna…" Eva whispered, her free hand caressing Anna's small breasts. They wouldn't be as big as her own, and probably not as big as her sister's either, but they were sensitive enough to make Anna pay attention to her. "What's wrong?" she asked, making it worse as her fingers idly twisted a small nipple.

"I…_can't,_" Anna gasped, and moaned again as Eva's fingers moved inside her. "More," she whispered, and had to cover her mouth with her hands as Eva obliged and _both hands_ were working inside her, thrusting up inside her and rubbing around the little area of skin that was making her jerk like a puppet and cry and moan like a dying thing.

"Here?" Eva asked. "Here? Here?" Every time she asked she moved her hands and Anna bit down on her hand to stop from screaming.

But every place was wrong. The burning fire at the core of her body wasn't going away. It felt like she had climbed a mountain and was at the summit, but there was no way down. Instinctively she knew there _should_ be one, but she didn't know what it was. Anna gasped and writhed and twisted under Eva's hands as they manipulated every part of her, but nothing worked. _Nothing worked._ There was a furnace inside her burning her to ashes and she couldn't put it out. She was drowning in an ocean and she couldn't swim to the surface. "More. Oh God, more. _More!"_

But nothing worked, and finally Eva stopped. She withdrew her hands and lifted herself from Anna's body and looked. The young princess sprawled out before her, covered in that strange dark blood and soapy water and her own wetness. Eva herself panted and twitched, frustrated with her…inability…to finish the girl underneath her. No _boy_ had ever lasted so long under her touch, but here the problem wasn't that she didn't want to, but that she couldn't. Anna's hands went between her legs and rubbed, making herself twitch and gasp with the feeling of it. She was unsatisfied and she knew it. The itch had withdrawn back inside he as Eva's hands had stopped their worship, but it wasn't _gone._ "I'm sorry," Eva whispered, feeling strange as she did so.

Anna looked up to see Eva straddling her again, wet and big above her. There were bite-marks around her neck and on her nipples. The eyes that usually looked out at her with such a cool gaze stared down at her, wide with desire, and the lips that usually bore a faint smile were opened wide and panting just as badly as hers was. Below the large, full breasts and tight stomach her sex twitched inside a dense brown thatch, and as she wanted it _dripped_ onto Anna's stomach. Everywhere on her body she was marked in red where Anna had pressed against her, and the bear's blood was printed on her like a mark of ownership. She felt the heat inside her rear up again, possessively.

_Mine!_ Anna's hand drifted over that nest of brown hair, and Eva's belly twitched in response as she gave a pleasurable little gasp.

"How?" Anna asked through painful breaths, and Eva knew what she was asking. The older girl grabbed Anna's hands, and led them down to rest on her soaking-wet sex.

"Like this. _Ah._" Eva's head reared back just like the bear's had done, but when it came forwards again there wasn't death in her eyes. "Listen," she whispered.

"What?" Anna asked quietly, as Eva's hips bucked and twisted as Anna moved her fingers over Eva's warm flesh.

Eva bent and leaned over Anna until her breasts caressed Anna's chest and their lips were nearly touching. "I'm going…_umm_…to teach you a word._ Ah!_"

"What?" Anna asked, and reached into Eva the same way Eva had reached into her, feeling Eva's warm and wet flesh all around her fingers and watching as her curves moved above her at Anna's command, tongue lolling out of her mouth as she reached for air and stomach tightening with the sensations Anna was making her feel as she twisted and moaned. How could a boy compare to this?

Eva brought her head back down and there was barely any intelligence left in her eyes, only a desperate need. "_F…fuck,"_ Eva whispered into her ear as Anna's hands worked in and out of her like a wheel.

"Fuck," Anna whispered back, and just the sound of the word seemed to make Eva tighter around her.

"_Fuck_ _me_," Eva whispered through clenched teeth as her large breasts heaved with every movement of her body, and Anna could see light in her eyes. It wasn't the same kind of light she saw in Elsa's when she had been looking at the stars. It was a light looking past her and through her, and Anna watched it come and go with her fingers inside Eva. So she did it again, faster and faster, and put her teeth on Eva's chest and sucked at her nipples until they were raw and used her hand to caress and tickle and twist at every inch of Eva's tight flesh, and when she was done she looked at the older girl, driven so deep into her own pleasure that she could barely move or speak, and watched silently as Eva hit the same peak Anna herself had stood at, and began the fall.

"You…your…m…majestyyyyy, my_…QUEEEEN! AHHHH!_" Eva half-whispered half-begged through the orgasm that was ripping her body apart inside from her nipples to her cunt. Then Anna's lips were on hers, and she screamed into them as she came hard, eyes closed against the lights, and so unable to see Anna's smile as she jerked and groaned and gushed hot under the princess' touch. Anna brought her hands up to Eva's mouth and Eva licked the younger girl's fingers without being asked, throat bobbing and chest moving up and down as she sucked her own wetness. Anna looked, entranced, at the thin wet strings joining her fingers and Eva's tongue. She wiped them off on the same tongue.

Eva licked her lips and stared at her through exhausted eyes. "My queen," she said thickly through a mouthful of herself, and the look of carnal desire and satisfaction that Eva gave her was almost as good as falling off a mountain of her own.

Anna had her prize.

* * *

She lay in bed, too exhausted to move but too exhausted to sleep. There had been a bath afterwards, but Anna barely remembered either it or the walk back to her room. If anyone had come across the pair they would have found the younger princess in a normal nightgown being escorted through the castle by a servant who had caught her stealing from the kitchens. Not a bad princess who had snuck from the castle, gotten into a life-or-death situation against a mad wild animal, and sneaked back in with the help of a guilty castle servant. Certainly not a wild princess who had gone with that same castle servant to a remote part of the castle and done…and had…

_And fucked each other 'till they screamed._

Even the thought of the word Eva had taught her made her squirm.

Anna stared at the ceiling of her room and held her hands up before her. If she closed her eyes she could still see the red blood of the bear covering them. The blood had covered her like a thin suit and in the end had taken both of them scrubbing painfully to remove it. When she had been wearing it though…_when she had been wearing it!_

She had felt like a different person. Like one of the wild men from the stories, crazed berserkers with the strength of ten who could sweep away nations before them and kidnapped princesses to be their brides. She had felt like she could have done anything. She _had_ done anything. She had taken her first kill and her first conquest on the same night and she wasn't sorry about either.

And if anyone had dared known or dared ask, she wouldn't have been able to tell them which she had liked better.

* * *

In another room, Elsa stared up at the ceiling like Anna. Her hands were free and waving above her like a conductor, and waves of ice and frost were etching themselves onto the ceiling in a familiar pattern; two small human figures, and a larger bear. One of the small human figures held a sword, and another wore a crown. All around the bear spikes and chains were painted pointed towards its heart.

For the first time in years she had used her powers in anger, and they had sang at her command. She had helped save her sister. Even if her father somehow found out and was furious, he couldn't take that away from her. Even if the thought of marriage and courtship didn't interest her, there was only a single year to her debut, and the castle gates finally opening. In one year she would be able to show her parents how wrong they had been.

Both sisters lay in their beds and felt triumph.

* * *

The bear was found by a group of hunters the next morning, dead from a dozen places, huge spikes of ice impaling it from every angle and its head hacked apart by a strong blade. The ground around it was coated with blood that in one place was mixed in and smeared together with the snow, where the beast had fought with it's killer. A blade lay forgotten on the ground, but no-one dared touch it.

Most of the hunting party kissed the small charms of saints they carried with them, and made the sign of the cross on their hearts to ward off whatever devil surely did this thing. There would be no hunting today.

A couple of the hunters however made a much older sign, quickly and silently while their more devout friends couldn't see them.

A word would be whispered in homes that night, among those who had lived in the fjords far longer than these modern Christian newcomers, and who quietly kept the old ways.

The word was _Vanir._

* * *

_Chapter notes at cobraygordon dot tumblr dot com as usual._

_Incidentally I'd like to thank everyone who's followed/fav'd so far. I can see the traffic stats via FFnet but it's always nice to know people are actually reading and enjoying the story rather than just clicking the page and passing by. I notice I got a bunch of new readers after elsannaheadcanon published a link, give a shout out if there's anywhere else I should be submitting this to. All feedback is appreciated and cared for, and if the good responce to this story keeps up I'll start responding to questions and stuff individually (something I normally avoid due to nervousness)._

_Thanks again, hope you're enjoying the ride._

_~Cobray_


	8. I F

**Thanks to people who have left reviews. I don't say that much (mainly because I don't want to risk appearing the kind of tool who begs for reviews) but I really do mean it. Last chapter got a bunch of them and made some good points. Rest assured I do read every review you guys, and treasure the criticism just as much as the praise. A lot was talked about Anna's actions and I will just leave these two notes: One; while this is still the Anna we know, remember that she _is_ different from the canon in one very important way that's working on her basic personality. Two; adrenaline is a hell of a thing.  
**

* * *

Kristoff walked the streets of Arendelle and listened.

Or at least he tried to.

"Morning Kristoff."

"Morning Kristoff."

"Morning Sven. Kristoff."

"M'rnin' Kristoff!"

Kristoff knelt down to eye-level at the last greeting as the pair swarmed him, patting at his pockets looking for gifts. "Hey kids. How you doing?"

Two pairs of brown eyes stared up at him in wonder as he drew out the small shining baubles. They were castoffs from the metalworker's forges, literally just small twisted scraps of bronze he'd balled up on a hot stove and put on a piece of string. But they twisted in the breeze throwing off yellow and gold reflections, and the twin girls gaped in wonder at them as he handed them over and gave them a pat on the head. "Enjoy!" He would never admit it to anyone he knew but he loved doing stuff like that. Little things that cost him nothing but somehow seemed all-important to others.

"Thank you Kristoff!" they sang as they laughed and skipped away back to their mother, who gave him a small wave as they practically jumped in the air to show her their prizes.

"Don't let the castle catch you stealing their brass."

Kristoff turned. "Morning Dag. Hey!"

Dag ruffled Kristoff's hair much the same way Kristoff had done the same for the girls. No matter how much he grew the man always seemed to treat him like the same little kid who'd followed the other ice-miners with his little sled. Looking at him now a decade and then some later Dag barely seemed to have changed. Most of his face was hidden by a huge brown beard to keep the cold out of his face and even in town in the middle of summer he still wore his leathers.

_In case of a rogue snowstorm lately?_ Kristoff wondered.

"They keeping you well in that castle of your lad?" the old ice-miner asked with a pat on the back that could have broken a lesser man's spine.

"More like I'm the one keeping _them_ well you old kludge," Kristoff shot back.

Dag snorted but didn't say anything more, which was strange enough… "What, not going to complain about me leaving a good old honest business to be a castle lackey? Kristoff teased. "Not going to complain about your old good-luck charm going off to brush royal boots and polish horses? Wait."

Dag looked at him like he was simple. "You've not heard then?" he asked softly. "Aye I guess you wouldn't've up in that stone monstrosity. You really need to get out more boy."

"Heard what?" Kristoff asked, resisting the urge to glance back at the castle. The marketplace sat on the town square only a small walk from the drawbridge that led to it. From the middle of it Kristoff could see right through the square and to the guards who stood at either side of the bridge. He resisted the urge to check if they were watching. He wasn't doing anything wrong but…"Something going on?"

"You notice anything a little off about me today lad?" Dag asked in the slow tones of someone asking a question the other person should really know the answer to.

Dag was right in a way. Kristoff really _had _been spending too much time inside the castle. Years ago he would have noticed it right off. "You're off to gather _ice?_" he asked in disbelief.

You didn't gather ice in summer. Not because there wasn't any, but because it was simply too dangerous. If you weren't someone who lived and worked around the stuff it might seem a little backward but when you grew up, breathed it, depended on it for your life and wealth, you learned all the little tricks. In winter ice was a solid thing, strong as iron. The mountain and the wind grew it like corn grew in the sunny countries down south and there was tons of it everywhere you looked. Ice-miners did it professionally, taking waist-high blocks of the stuff from lakes and streams, but in winter practically any housewife could walk to the edge of their village and take a chunk of it from a stream or overhang. Ice-miners would spend weeks doing nothing but hauling ice down from the mountains, shaving it into blocks and packing it in sawdust and hiding it in semi-buried storehouses to make it last.

In summer ice-miners, for two reasons. The ice soaked up the heat that flowed around the country and turned from something solid and immovable to something slippery and dangerous, weaknesses and cracks forming in huge slabs that had built up all winter. Anyone who tried to gather ice took their lives into their own hands. This was when the store the ice-miners had built up over winter appeared, taken from the ice-houses and sold door-to-door and in huge slabs to the castle and other nobility that dotted Arendelle. Every scrap they'd gathered would be sold, sometimes even to passing southern merchants from places Kristoff couldn't even pronounce the names of.

The other reason you didn't gather ice in summer was the wildlife.

"_What?" _Kristoff asked, in utter disbelief at the thing that Dag had just told him.

"There's a god on the mountain," Dag said, fingering a small charm around his neck.

It wasn't the words that confused Kristoff the most. He'd grown up with the same stories every other boy in the north had. Told to him by surly old ice-miners and not parents too, which means they told them the old way; not the clean and sanitised morality lessons but the older versions that left in the blood and guts and consequences of disobeying them. It was the way Dag had said it; blunt and to the point, as if he was pointing out the weather. "What?"

Dag let the small charm drop to his neck and Kristoff got a better look at it. It was just a small rectangle of iron, kept around the man's neck on a frayed piece of string. On it Kristoff could see small scratches: A single vertical line, then next to it another vertical line with two smaller ones coming off it at the top and middle, angled down and to the right.

"''If'? If what"? Kristoff asked.

"No you daft boy, they're runes," Dag said. Swinging it around his finger.

"Runes for what?"

Dag pointed at the two symbols. "Ice," he said. "and God."

* * *

Kristoff just listened as the old man talked, his heart sinking as he did so.

They had relocated to the nearest tavern in the marketplace, a dull smoky place that barely let any light in even at noon at the height of summer. Kristoff had dragged the ice-miner in on the promise of free beer and to buy the castle's next consignment exclusively from him. Dag hadn't looked a gift-horse in the mouth, and he wasn't stupid. Beer and eventual money in exchange for answering a few questions was alright with him.

"It started near the end of winter when Harald's group found a dead bear in the woods. He's a daft old bastard and his ice is barely fit to use but he wasn't stupid."

"He killed a bear? So what? You always find a few who didn't hibernate right when spring rolls around."

Dag leaned forward and was practically whispering. "Harald didn't kill it, and neither did anyone else, boy. A god killed that bear."

"A god." He didn't laugh only because Dag could still have probably picked him up and thrown him through a window. Ice-miners were a humourless bunch who didn't like to be laughed at.

"Aye. Tore the thing apart and displayed it on totems of ice like you'd put a flag on a flagpole. Torn. Apart."

Kristoff felt the bottom drop out of his stomach, and suddenly the beer in front of him didn't taste quite so good anymore. "Icicles. Giant…icicles?" he asked, swallowing to try and stop what he'd already drank from coming back up.

_I hadn't asked._

He hadn't asked what had happened when Anna and Elsa had come back from that secret tunnel covered in blood. Eventually they would have told him, he thought. He was their friend, and friends shared troubles, right? But the day had ended, then the next, and they hadn't took him aside and whispered it. Then the next day they _had _come by, and just…pretended…that the last night hadn't happened. They had sat in the garden and talked about the actor's troupe that had played at Elsa's birthday, and about what Elsa wanted for her eighteenth, and about how Sven was doing, and the rest of the horses. He'd wanted to just come right out and _ask_ them, but he hadn't dared.

The day had turned into a week, and the week into two, then a month, and another. Finally six months had passed since that winter night, and Kristoff had simply put it from his mind. Anna and Elsa still laughed and played and joked around, and that was enough. He had considered asking Eva, but had put that thought out of his mind immediately. He couldn't really go around asking for her secrets when he was keeping one himself.

"Giant icicles, just coming right up out of the ground," Dag confirmed, not noticing the peculiar shade of white currently decorating Kristoff's face. "And it wasn't just any old bear either, Harald swears it was the bastard that took Geir two years back. Damn thing tore him up for food, looks like we got our revenge in the end."

_Oh bull. Harald would swear he met Christ and Odin if it would get him the attention. It was probably some different bear and you just want to say it was the same one because you went drinking with Geir a lot. _But Kristoff put two and two together. "They think a god punished the bear for killing him?"

Dag rubbed a thumb over the little talisman. "I saw that ice, boy," he said with a warning note in his voice. "And that bear wasn't the only one either. Half a year now and there's been no-one taken on the mountain."

"No-one?" That was fairly unusual. With that profession you expected…losses. A careless foot would take a man down a ravine, or a herder's flock would attract hungry wolves, or just plain bad luck would sweep a man from the sides of Arendelle's hills like it was nothing.

"No-one. Not to wolves, bears, snow-cats, _nothing._ And animals that try turn up dead."

_Oh, gods._ "On giant icicles?"

"No, but butchered just the same," Dag said, with more than a little satisfaction in his voice. He was getting old for an ice-miner, and he'd seen more than one friend dragged away by a bear, or turn up missing in the morning with nothing but a trail leading into the woods from his tent. "Every few weeks someone'll walk up the mountain and find some wild thing bled out and dead on the mountain near a village or a well. We're protected."

_Animals eating animals, and some old superstitious bastards making up stories about gods and monsters._ Kristoff asked, feeling the steel bar inside him give, just a little. "How many other people know?"

"Enough. Anyone worth anything who's up on that mountain."

Kristoff ignored the insult. "And you all think there's some kind of spirit living up there?" he asked. "And you're what, worshipping it?"

Dag shrugged. "I've seen the work it's left behind boy." He leaned closer and chugged the rest of his drink. "I've lived decades in Arendelle, climbed the old northern bitch every year since I was old enough to-."

"Yeah, yeah, since you were old enough to carry a pick, and so on."

Dag cuffed him on the ear. "I've been a god-fearing man all my life boy, didn't make sense not to be in my job. But if the thing up there on the mountain is any son of a carpenter then I'll eat my hat and ask for seconds." He fingered the rune-charm. "I remember what my mother told me, and right now I'm more inclined to look to this chunk of steel before I do a wooden cross."

"Careful," Kristoff said. Several other bar patrons were glancing at them as Dag stood.

The man nodded. "Thanks for the beer, boy. You should come back up the mountain. Do a real man's work again."

"I'll think about it."

* * *

"Oh Sven. We're really in trouble now."

Now that he knew what to look for Kristoff started seeing more of it. He ignored Sven's licks as he walked the marketplace collecting the things on his list; leather straps, glue, the usual. He let his hands and mouth wander on autopilot while his eyes and brain worked. The former were excellent, and the latter was better than people let on.

After an hour in the town he had spotted five more of the small iron charms. All the same, all with the two runes stamped or carved or scorched into the metal. All of them worn by…well…it wasn't nice but worn by people of a similar status to Kristoff. He'd ask for a brace of birds from a butcher and the man would reach up and he'd catch the silvery flash of iron around his neck. An ice-miner and a butcher, and soon a house-wife and a milkmaid and a farmer. He would smile and ask, and sometimes he'd get narrowed glances and a cold response when they spotted the castle's seal on his money-purse, and others he'd get a little more.

_Da says there's an ice spirit living on the mountains watching over him._

_Since I started wearing this I've had no trouble since winter._

_Makes more sense to believe in something that helps then something that don't._

"Oh sure, I've seen it."

His mind screeched to a halt as the old woman spoke. "Huh?"

"I've seen it." The woman spoke the same way Dag had back in the tavern; with the same lack of worry and slight tinge of awe you would have had if you talked about the royal family, or a stroke of good luck. "A beautiful thing it was too."

Kristoff fed a carrot to Sven to keep him quiet, then turned back to the woman manning the market stall. "How?" he asked, bringing out a single coin.

The coin disappeared into her hand. "I was gathering wood for the winter, by the mountainside, when I saw the wolf." She went on: "I dropped it and ran like the devil of course, but you can't outrun a wolf in the snow, not in summer. That's when it saved me."

"What happened?" Kristoff asked, feeding her another coin like she was a baby bird.

"Well I heard it snarl. But not like a normal snarl you know? Like a dog when something nips at his balls. More of a yelp really. So like a big idiot I turned around to look and I saw it." Another coin, another smile. "The wolf was bleeding, looked like from maybe a dozen places, and the spirit was dancing around it laughing."

"Dancing?"

The woman shrugged. "As good a word as any. Beast didn't stand a chance."

"What did it look like?" he said, throat hoarse, almost whispering.

"Oh I couldn't see _that_ well at night, but it was wearing a cloak made of snow and clothes that shone."

"It could have been a hunter," Kristoff suggested.

"Oh no, not like that. Not like any hunter around here. It was a small thing, maybe just a little bigger than the wold. And it moved so beautifully. And it had a beautiful sword," the woman said with a faint smile, lost in the memory. "It shone, even in the night. Like silver."

"And that's when…"

The woman nodded, and held up her rune. "Had this made the next day. Had some complaints from the neighbours but I'm not worried about them. I've seen the truth."

Kristoff thanked her with another coin and walked away, back towards the castle gates. Even after he got back to his small room in the servant's quarters his mind kept flashing back to Dag and the old woman. They had both believed, and not in a wide-eyed and hopeful way. They didn't have 'faith', because they _knew._

Kristoff sighed. There were two awful conversations looming very large in his future now, and he wasn't looking forward to either of them.

* * *

He caught her in the morning, coming out of her own room.

"Hello Eva."

"Kristoff. This is a surprise, to find you near a lady's room."

Kristoff had taken enough ribbings on that point over the years to not blush anymore. "You count as a lady now? Listen, I have a favour to ask."

"Do I owe you one?" Eva asked, looking up at him with huge brown eyes. It was an act and a good one, but Kristoff was immune. After spending enough time around a young Anna and Elsa he knew all the tricks about being manipulative.

"Maybe I'll owe you then. You do the washing for the servants, right?"

"Sometimes," Eva asked, eyes narrowing.

"Do any of them have a long white cloak?" he asked.

Not a single twitch. "I believe so, several of us in fact. Did you lose a cloak? I can't sell you a new one but-"

_I'm asking you because you spend more time around a certain someone than people say you should and I want you to ask her if..if..._ People talked, and Kristoff heard. He didn't always understand it or believe it, but he heard. Kristoff sighed inwardly. He simply didn't have it in him to be manipulative, or cunning. He left that to other people. The trolls had always taught him to be open and honest with others. That it would make life simpler. Then they'd sent him into the middle of a huge mess called the Arendelle royal family.

_Thanks guys. All I wanted to do was grow up and harvest ice._

"Eva."

"Yes Kristoff?" Eva asked with a smile.

He looked her right in those large brown eyes and smiled back, and gave it his best shot. "Someone with a white cloak has been spotted in the forest causing…well…causing more than a little trouble. If-_ if_ you might know who it is…Let them know to be careful, alright? Please?"

"Certainly," she said, staring at him a little harder.

Kristoff had the distinct and unnerving impression she was weighing him up. He tried doing it back but didn't have the knack. In the end what convinced him was that he simply couldn't believe it. Not that little redhead with the friendly smile and the laugh that cheered him up just hearing it. Impossible. "Thanks Eva."

The look on Eva's face softened a little, and she ran a finger down his face. "You're a good man, Kristoff. When are you going to find a girl?"

_The only girls I care for aren't for me._

"None of your business," he replied, but not harshly.

Eva turned back to her door. "You're welcome."

Kristoff sighed as it shut before him. One down. One to go.

* * *

"Your majesty."

Elsa smiled as he entered. "Hello Kristoff. How are you?"

"Oh, so it's all formality and grace today then?"

Elsa stared at him for a moment, then blew a royal raspberry at him. "I'm supposed to be training myself for the ball."

The ball. Elsa and Anna had been consumed with thoughts of it for the last few months. Kristoff swore that if she could have Elsa would have marked down the days. The sisters were both filled with excitement and happiness, infecting everyone around them. More than a decade locked inside the castle was finally ending. Kristoff had watched Elsa grow up and seen it eating at her, the bitterness in her voice that even _she_ probably hadn't heard. Now that there was finally a date all that one gone. Elsa glowed.

"How's the training going?"

Elsa stood from the seat in the library and curtsied perfectly. The seventeen year-old could make even a simple plaid dress and white shirt look elegant. "How am I?" She said with a laugh, twirling.

He clapped appreciatively. "Stunning. They'll be lining up to propose." He noticed a small twitch downwards in her mouth when he said that, but his mind was on other things. He took a deep breath. "Elsa."

"What?"

"Before I start asking this please remember we're inside a room filled with very valuable books, and also that I'm not wearing clothes for the cold."

"What is it Kristoff?"

"It's about your sixteenth birthday."

Kristoff had known Elsa since they were children, practically. Well enough that he noticed the ever-so-slight changes. Her pupils dilated. Her arms tightened up and her hands grasped each other around her midriff. "What about it?" Elsa asked, and he couldn't tell whether she was angry or scared. He hoped it was the second one.

"Elsa have there…have you…" He tried to find the words. Gave up. "Have you used that passage since then?"

"No," Elsa asked, frowning. She stepped forward and grabbed his hands in her own. "Why, what's happened?"

He looked into her eyes and saw she wasn't lying. He felt better. In fact he felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. "Just some stories going around the village," he said, and lifted a hand away from Elsa's to ruffle at her hair. "I thought…well…I thought maybe you were sneaking out at night."

Elsa snorted. "Not after that first time. Blood everywhere and a perfectly good coat almost ruined."

"I was cleaning those clothes for days because you wouldn't let me throw them out."

"It was my favourite coat! I wasn't going to let you just burn it!"

The two laughed, and the topic turned quickly away from gods and monsters in the night and back to what Kristoff was doing, and how Elsa was preparing for the ball, and how much all three of them were looking forward to walking through the town together, finally. Kristoff forgot the panic and worry he had felt, and put it out of his mind. He didn't care about what happened to the local wildlife, or strange beliefs or any of that stuff. Kristoff cared about the girl – almost truly a woman now – in front of him, and her sister, and keeping them both as happy as he could. Giant icicles and dancing goddesses in the night are forgotten, as were dead bears and wolves.

And as spring turned into autumn, the stories continued to grow.

* * *

**A shorter chapter this week because my arm is all messed up and it's hard to type.**

**Next week will make up for it.**

**Chapter 09: Coming of Age**

**Be there.**


	9. The Fear

"You're going to look _beautiful_ dear."

Elsa stood like a sculpture half-finished as the maids danced around her with bobby pins and scissors and measures, making final alterations to the dress.

_Yes, I will be._ She watched herself be built in the mirror, swathes of green and black cloth held up to her, examined and cut and pinned by the small intense tailor her father had hired. She shifted uncomfortably under the constraining fabric, every pin that held it in place pricking her when she did so. Eventually she simply stopped struggling against it as a green bodice and skirt went over the tight black smock. The wrinkled old tailor held up a small thick strip of black velvet and wrapped it gently around her throat. She tried to lift up her hands to rip his away from her neck but the pins in the dress pricked and stabbed at her and she had no choice but to stand as he secured it with a single red pin.

The man smiled as he stepped back from his masterpiece. "Perfect. Your majesty, you will be radiant."

* * *

"Pfff, as if you would ever look _not_ radiant. You'd look great in Kristoff's old castaways," Anna said with a laugh from the depths of her chair.

Elsa didn't feel like laughing much. She kept scratching at her neck and wrists and chest, still feeling those steel points poking at her flesh. Just sitting on the carpet in front of her mother's chair while Idunn did her braids felt like tiny pins and needles. "Easy for you to laugh, you're not the one who spent the whole morning in an iron maiden," she muttered darkly at her sister. "Morning_s_."

"But the fit will be so much better in the end love," Queen Idunn said softly as she ran the comb through Elsa's hair with one hand and gathered it up in another. If she had been asked at sword-point to name the favourite thing to do with her daughter, the hair was it. Elsa's hair was gorgeous, and she loved having it styled. They'd spent innumerable hours together playing with it as Elsa had grown up. "The reward will be worth the small discomfort."

The three of them sat in the small drawing room; the woman, the soon-to-be-woman and the girl. Arendelle castle had so many rooms with so much history behind them that Elsa barely bothered to remember their names, all of them somehow terribly significant and imbued with the very _history_ of their great country, whatever that meant. The Galleria. Olaf's Room. The Treaty Room. The Independence Room. Instead she and Anna had given them childhood names of their own. Joan's Pictire-Room. The Cold Room. The Scary Dungeon. The Fireplace Room.

The Mountain's Corridor.

She and Anna had always liked this one though. Whenever she had been upset or sad she had always come here and the fireplace had always been roaring and her mother was always there waiting for her. She would come in and sit down on her mother's lap and Idunn had always just…listened…to whatever was bothering the young princesses. Whether it had been their tutors giving them unfair lectures or a scraped knee, a noontime snack or an argument with a servant, Elsa had always been able to go to the small drawing room and find her mother there, waiting. She would open the door with a creak and Idunn would look up from a book or her embroidery and smile, and Elsa would feel better.

Like today. Elsa had spent every morning of the last week in that small and stuffy dressing room as women –and men! – she didn't know ran hands over her in front of reams of cloth. The first morning she had gone in and been ecstatic. The second morning much less so. By Thursday she was entirely willing to put it all aside and go to her own ball in, as Anna had suggested, Kristoff's old slacks.

"You'll look radiant," Idun said wistfully. "They'll all be spellbound."

"Hey, Elsa doesn't need witchcraft to help out. Although I guess if you want to make absolutely sure…" Anna laughed as Elsa playfully slapped a hand at her shoulder.

"Anna! Where do you pick up these ideas from?"

"Nowhere mother, just a book," Anna said, and since Idunn's eyes were on Elsa's hair, only Elsa caught the wink Anna gave.

"Witchcraft's nothing to joke about young lady, especially these days," Idunn whispered with a dark look in her eyes.

And as Elsa looked at Anna, her little sister had the good grace to look ashamed. _Your fault,_ Elsa mouthed.

Anna stood from her own chair, dropping her book haphazardly on the ground. She strode over to her mother and elbowed her to one side, shuffling back and forward until she was hugging up close against her in a chair built for one. "Lemme help," Anna said, and even though Idunn had no idea why, Elsa knew that Anna was feeling just the littlest bit guilty.

* * *

_A ghost dressed all in black and blue seemed to simply appear out of thin air._

"_Kristoff, have you seen Anna?" Elsa asked, and when the ice-harvester turned away from Sven and looked at her she might have laughed if she hadn't been so worried. No matter how old he grew or how much time he spent around other people, the man simply didn't know how to bluff._

"_No," he bluffed._

"_Liar. Where is she? It's important."_

_Kristoff pushed Sven away as the reindeer tried to nuzzle at his face. "What's it about?" he asked._ All I want,_ he thought,_ is a single quiet week…

_And Elsa held up the tiny pendant she had found. "This."_

_I F_

_Kristoff went bug-eyed, and Elsa watched as the thoughts ran transparently across his big dumb blonde face. He knew when he was beaten though, and sighed. "She's in the kitchen," he said, panicking just a little too much to remember he really shouldn't have said that, as Elsa strode off purposefully towards the wooden door leading to the downstairs castle. Something warm and wet licked at his cheek, and without looking he reached into his pocket for a carrot and held it up. It immediately vanished. "Oh Sven. Why do we get ourselves involved with those two?"_

_Elsa walked through the draughty stone corridors, tracing the long and well-worn route to the castle kitchens. The servants gasped and bowed as she passed by, occasionally stopping as a food service or loaded tray came through. From morning 'till night the downstairs of Arendelle castle worked and heaved to try and make sure the upstairs never experienced more than a slight inconvenience, like a court magician rapidly dashing to and fro to keep a dozen spinning plates perfectly balanced in the air. Even with the castle closed off and the staffing kept to those loyal there were still dozens of servants who worked day and night, who themselves needed to be fed and watered and cared for._

_Finally Elsa reached the kitchens, and looked around._

"_Y'majesty?" the cook's assistant nearly screeched, eyes wide in alarm._

"_Hello. Have you seen the princess Anna?" Elsa asked, as kindly as she could. The poor woman's eyes looked like they could have popped from her skull. _We really don't come down here that often, do we?_ she thought._

_Unfortunately, for both Anna and for Elsa, the cook was almost as bad a liar as Kristoff was. "No," he said, in the exact same instant his eyes darted sideways, away from Elsa._

_She settled for a small smile. "Thank you. Don't let me detain you," she said softly, and watched as the relieved chef hurried away. When she was sure the man was gone she turned in the direction his eyes had gone, and saw the small wooden trapdoor leading down into the castle's foundations. She sighed. _Oh Anna.

_She wondered what trouble her little sister was getting into in the castle wine cellar._

SCENE BREAK

"You really did look pretty though," Anna said, just a little guiltily. "I said I was sorry."

Anna had wandered into the room on the third morning and stood there smiling at Elsa as the older princess stood, unable to shift so much as a millimetre under threat of being poked by a thousand drawing pins. All morning Anna had stood there, looking the perfect little picture of decorum when one of the dress-makers looked across at her. When the coast had been clear she had spent the rest of the time sticking her tongue out and trying to make Elsa laugh. Every time Elsa had giggled the dress-maker had _shushed_ her, and a thousand tiny pinpricks had run over her body. She hadn't spoken to Anna for the rest of the night.

That hadn't lasted though.

"Fine," Elsa said. "But expect my revenge in three years' time when _you_ have to go through the ball, and you're stuck on a box with things poking at you."

"I'm tougher than you," Anna said confidently.

"Prove it!" Elsa said, and grabbed a pillow. Suddenly the room was filled with laughter as Anna grabbed another to defend herself, and the two started whacking each other with goosefeather-pillows.

"Elsa, Anna!" their mother said with a gasp that quickly turned to laughter. "This is no way for ladies to behave!"

SCENE BREAK

_The wine cellar was kept lit only be a few scattered candles on the wall, and kept warm only by the heat of the fires above. She felt soil under her shoes, the entire sprawling room never having been paved like the outside or the main corridors. Why bother, when the only people to come down here were maids and servants to fetch drinks for the royalty and guests, or merchants come to buy and sell?_

"_Anna?" Elsa whispered into the dark. She was a little worried. Not that she would find Anna drunk or anything like that, their father allowed them wine at small celebrations like New Year's or his birthday, but both of them found it tepid and too sharp. But she knew if anyone could find mischief down in a dark cellar filled with valuable, easily-breakable glass, Anna could._

_Finally she spotted it, a shadow moving in a way that it shouldn't across the stone walls and wooden barrels that sat in seemingly-endless rows in the huge room. Elsa wasn't really in the mood for games that day, not after what she'd found, and strode through the wood. "Anna I don't know what you're hoping to find down here but if you still believe those stories about buried treasure then I have to wonder if…_"

_Her voice trailed off as she turned one last corner and found her sister, and her mouth dropped open in absolute unexpected shock, so widely her mother would have told her to close it or else her face might stay that way. The shadows hadn't been shifting oddly because Anna had been digging. She _had_ been moving though._

_Anna stood with her back against a wooden barrel, her dress unbuttoned at the front and fallen to her waist, and she was wearing no underclothes underneath. Her small frame was hidden though by the other woman – and it was a woman, somehow – who was stood in front of her, pushing her against the wooden barrel. She was just as nude as Anna, shirts drawn down to her middle, but with much more to reveal. Huge breasts pressed against her little sister's smaller nubs as the two shifted against each other._

_Anna was lost in her, it was clear. Elsa watched in horror as they their lips met over and over again, kissing and sucking at each other as their tongues darted in and out of each other's mouths, intertwined. Their hands moved across each other's fronts, running over their bellies and up and across their breasts, tugging and grabbing at each other, Anna grabbing handfuls of pale flesh while the other woman trailed lightly and grasped at what little Anna had. A hand lazily reached for one of Anna's small nipples with her big and index fingers and tweaked it, making Anna moan wetly into the other woman's mouth, eyes fluttering up to the ceiling._

_She had been watching for only a couple of seconds._

"_ANNA!"_

_Anna's eyes opened slowly, languidly to look up. It took half a second's heartbeat for the eyes to look from the person she was embracing. Smokey half-lidded teal orbs caught blue ones, and suddenly Anna's eyes were as wide as Elsa's and she gave a small squeak of panic as her hands that had a second ago been grasping at the other woman's flesh was pushing her away as fast as they could._

"_Elsa!?" Anna shrieked, her hands going down to her sides and trying to grab her dress. She tried to button it but her fingers were shaking too badly, and all she managed to do was make an idiot of herself. The other woman was much calmer, simply stepping back and turning to look at Elsa, making no effort to cover herself._

Eva_, Elsa thought, recognising the woman that had helped them six months ago on that disastrous birthday trip. The milkmaid stared back at her. Not defiant, or ashamed. Just looking with those huge dark eyes and brown hair plastered over her face, rivulets of sweat snaking down over…over…_

_She was jerked from her mindless anger when Anna pushed past her holding up her dress, barely slowing down._

"_Elsaimsorryicanexplain!" She said, as if she wanted to stay but some outside force was dragging her from the wine cellar. Elsa listened as Anna's shoes _tap-tapped_ against the wooden stairs leading out of the cellar._

_Eva bent down to curtsey, making no attempt to hide herself. "Your majesty," she said, as if the two had met in the castle halls._

_Elsa didn't know what she was experiencing. Something hot and raw that felt like anger, or betrayal, or a mix of the two. She could feel something cold and hard against her teeth, not realising she was grinding them together._

"_Can I help you, your majesty?" Eva asked._

"_You…you..." Elsa sputtered._

_Eva took a step forward, breasts shifting with the movement of her hips, and Elsa watched as a bead of sweat ran down from her hair to her cheek, and the milkmaid's tongue darted out to lick it. She was so…so…she couldn't think of the exact word, but enough of them ran through her head she could have picked any of them and been more or less right. Gross. Indecent. Lascivious. Obscene._

_She felt a bump at her back, and grabbed the wooden slat holding up the wine-barrel. Instantly to her horror a thin coating of ice formed over the wood, which creaked with the sudden pressure. She took a deep breath. _Get it together.

_She did so._

"_How dare you." she hissed. This servant doing _this_ disgusting thing to her sister. _Her sister! _"How dare you!"_

_Worse, the milkmaid had the nerve to look surprised, wounded even. "She asked, your majesty."_

_Liar. Anna would never. "Liar!"_

_But Elsa felt the tiny little iron charm in her dress' pocket, the original reason she had went searching for Anna, and her mind whispered to her; _but you already suspect that she would.

"_I don't go where I'm not wanted your majesty," Eva whispered, as she raised her hands and crossed them over her chest, her breasts rising and filling out above them as sweat from the woman's head ran down her chest. Her nipples were large and dark in the warm air, surrounded by pimpled gooseflesh, too large to be from someone the same age as Elsa. "She wanted me to, and I am a loyal servant." Eva stepped closer, and licked her lips and Elsa blushed angry scarlet at the gesture. "If you would like to know-"_

_Elsa heard the noise, felt her hand move from motionless at the right side of her body to outstretched on the left, and she saw Eva's head snap sideways, but somehow it took her a second to realise the sharp, painful noise was her slapping the milkmaid as hard as she could. She felt exhausted from it somehow._

"_Get out," Elsa whispered, but she was the one who ran. She didn't spare a single glance as she did so, but she knew Eva was standing there staring after her as she ran, those huge dark eyes following her every step she took._

* * *

"No fair, you cheated! She grabbed a second pillow!" Elsa shouted in mock anger at her sister.

"I'm the queen, I write the rules, I never said you_ couldn't_."

Anna stuck her tongue out at Elsa and held her new pillow up to the sky, the other hand planted on her hips, posing like a conquering hero. "Then I win!"

The queen smiled down at her youngest daughter and tapped her on each shoulder like she was anointing a knight. "Well done brave sir, for vanquishing the evil sorce- the evil dragon."

"Hey!" Elsa said in mock outrage, not really caring but playing along anyway.

"Next time you can be the hero," Anna whispered, and knocked her sister on the head with the pillow, and that set the pair off again.

When the king entered later in the day to check on his family, he would find Anna asleep in her mother's lap, and Elsa asleep leaned against her in the chair. Queen Idunn held up a finger to her lips and smiled, and the king stepped quietly into the room, taking a seat beside his wife and daughters, just watching.

The queen's eyes narrowed, ever so slightly, when she saw the small charm in her husband's hands. "Is that…" she whispered.

"Another one," Agdar said, fingering the small iron rectangle. He traced his thumb over it and even through the velvet could feel the letters scored deeply into the metal.

I F

"You don't _know,_" Idunn said, with a note of pleading in her voice that she hated.

The king wanted to go and sit next to his wife, but he didn't want to dislodge his sleeping daughters either. Both of them looked so happy and worry-free sitting there, wrapped in their mother's embrace. His beautiful family. He felt apart from them sometimes, like a cold stranger intruding on something warm and wonderful.

His hands shifted as he thought about the thin box back in his rooms, wrapped and ready. The birthday gift he would rather burn than give to his eldest daughter, his precious little diamond. He wanted to believe. He _wanted_ to be like his wife. But unlike Idunn who had a love big enough to hold the entire world, King Agdar's head was too strong to let itself be ruled by his heart. _She'll thank me when she's older,_ was the only thing he could think of to comfort himself.

_No she won't,_ his head replied, not allowing it.

* * *

"_Elsa? Can I come in?"_

"…_Door's open."_

_Anna crept into the room, shutting the door behind her as quietly as she could. She shivered as instantly the temperature dropped several degrees the second she stepped over the threshold. _She's really mad. _She ran her eyes over Elsa's sparse room; barely more than a bed and a desk and chair, and a wardrobe opposite. Elsa didn't spend much time in her room, she lived in the rest of the castle. For Elsa and herself their bedrooms were where they slept in, and little else. "Elsa?" She crept forward, and spotted a tuft of platinum hair poking out from behind the bed. Anna went around it and found Elsa sitting cross-legged on the floor, her back against the bed, staring out of her huge window. She had something in her hands she was moving around. Anna felt butterflies moving through her stomach as she spoke. "Can I sit down?" she said, barely above a whisper._

"…_Yes," Elsa said grudgingly._

_Anna sat down next to her sister and held her breath. She risked a glance at Elsa, staring out of the window over the courtyard, and the town beyond. "I'm sorry," she whispered, reaching a hand across to Elsa's, and felt her flinch. She withdrew it. "What's that?" she asked, turning the nervous reach into a pointed finger._

_Elsa held her hands out to show her, and Anna saw a small rectangle there. A tiny little iron charm, with two letters inscribed on it. She saw it and felt sick. "…Oh."_

"_What is it Anna?" Elsa asked, looking at her little sister, and suddenly it was Anna who couldn't meet her sister's eyes. "Are you alright? Are you in trouble?" Elsa asked, and when Anna finally looked at her sister the eyes she saw weren't angry or disappointed. Only worried._

She still cares,_ she thought in wonder, and it felt like a summer breeze sweeping through her heart. "It's a charm, to an ice god," Anna said, shuffling closer to her sister, and waiting for the next question she knew was coming. Her sister was too smart. Smart and beautiful and everything Anna wasn't._

_It wasn't long in coming. "Is it you?"_

"_Yes."_

_Elsa sighed, a long drawn-out breath that seemed to take forever, as her right arm went over Anna's shoulder to hug her little sister. "I'm not mad Anna. I could never stay mad at you," Elsa said, with infinite patience and forgiveness. "Tell me."_

_So Anna did. All of it. Starting at what she had felt six months ago when they had snuck out of the castle for the first time, and ending at when she had returned to the castle. Her first…experience…she blushed and skipped._

"_I remember. You were so brave," Elsa said._

_Anna nodded, words flowing out now like water down a waterfall, unstoppable. "I know! I felt like I was useful and strong and I wanted to feel like that again. I just feel like…like I have something I can be good at that you aren't." She felt Elsa's arm jerk away and pulled it back. She wanted to stay close to her, try and explain. "You're smart and beautiful and you're going to be the _queen _and I'm not _stupid_ Elsa, I know…I know I'm going to end up marrying some prince somewhere for a trade agreement or something _stupid_ but I just…" Her free hand flapped in the sky as if she could pull the words down from the air and her eyes burned from the tears of frustration and sadness flowing out of them._

_Elsa found them for her. "You wanted to be you," she whispered in the cold air that was already warming up, as she gently wiped the years from her little sister's eyes._

"_So I went out again looking," Anna said, eyes flicking to her sister's. "I went back out and…and the first time nothing happened!"_

"_When_ did_ something happen?" Elsa asked._

"_The third time," Anna admitted. "Three months ago." Three months after the birthday. "I found the sword we used to…on the old bear, and I was bringing it back when I heard a shout, and…"_

_Elsa listened as she told the story. He had been an old man wandering the forest, half-drunk and looking for God-knew-what, and the wolf had been hungry in the warming spring. She didn't shake with fear only because clearly Anna was here beside here and not dead, but still…_

I was sleeping without a care in the world while my sister was fighting a wolf!

"_And he thanked me! He was so happy to be alive! He thanked me and called me an angel sent from heaven and…and I loved it Elsa. It felt so good to help someone like that," Anna said, looking up at her older sister for validation. "And I thought finally I had something I could do."_

_And so on, and it had gone from there. Every few weeks, whenever she had dared, or when the thought of what her adulthood had in store for her got too much, or just whenever she needed to get away, Anna waited 'till the dead of night and snuck out of the castle with nothing but a sword and a borrowed cloak. Out in the woods she wasn't Princess Anna of Arendelle. She was a sword of mercy that struck out and saved the weak and avenged the lost, and it felt simple and right and good._

"_Not every time, but…but often enough," Anna said, as the story finished. "I loved it."_

_And there it was, Elsa thought. _My little sister, the hero. My God. _She smiled as she pictured it in her head; a mysterious lone figure, face hidden in a long white cloak, steel sword flashing at her side. Just like out of a storybook._

"_I'm sorry I made you worry," Anna whispered, cuddling closer to her sister._

_Elsa took a deep breath. "You're safe Anna, and that's all that counts for me. But what about…what about…" She tried to find the words to describe what she had felt when she had went down those stairs and found her little sister belly to belly with that woman, lips wrapped around each other, but she couldn't. "About _her?"_ she settled on eventually. She could still see Eva in her mind, half-naked and breasts dripping in sweat as she came closer to her, suggesting...suggesting that she could…_

_But Anna couldn't find the words either. She wanted to try and explain, wanted to say that she had kept reading the storybooks but the princes in them had made her smile less and less as her…obligations…had become clearer and clearer to her. She wanted to explain how Eva looked at her. About how she felt when she had first kissed the other woman in the kitchen weeks before the birthday, and tasted heat and spices. About the incredible feelings that had been pulled out of her body and what it felt like to stand over someone else and take them out in turn. About how rough and coarse Kristoff and the other boys looked and sounded when she compared them to Eva's smooth curves and soft voice. About how she felt a little heat bloom in her cheeks just thinking about it._

_But she couldn't. She just sat there and blushed and settled on two statements so general she felt stupid just saying them. "I like her. It feels…good."_

"_Do you…is it…are you in _love?_" Elsa asked, somewhere between horrified and fascinated. Just thinking about it made her own chest tighten up._

_Anna's mouth gaped open and she shook her head so fast she saw stars. "NO! I just…I just like her is all." Maybe when she was older she could explain better. For now she just shrugged._

_Elsa sighed and put it aside. She could dwell on it, she knew. Think about it over and over and try to work up some kind of indignation. Knew that by all rights she _should_. Weren't there _laws_? But she couldn't, really. Love for her little sister overrode them, and she sighed and rested Anna's head on her shoulders. "Oh Anna."_

"_I'm sorry," Anna whispered._

"_Maybe I should start calling you Sir Anna," Elsa said, and when Anna looked up at her she melted at the joy in her eyes. "But promise me something," she asked._

"_Anything."_

_Elsa put a finger onto Anna's lips. "Don't ever worry me like this again." She took a deep breath. "If you ever go outside of the castle like this again…" _Am I really going to do this? _"If you ever go outside of the castle again, promise you'll tell me first." She held out a hand, dangling the small pendant from it. "Promise?"_

_Anna nodded solemnly. "Promise."_

_The idea struck Elsa as perfect the second she thought of it. She stood and kept a hand on Anna's shoulder to stop her following. She reached inside herself and saw the power there, blue and calm and totally under her control. _She'll love it. _She closed her eyes and held out the hand palm up, the pendant resting on top. When she heard Anna gasp, she knew she had succeeded._

_When she opened them again she saw the blade resting on her hand. It was nothing like the perfectly-straight swords that came from the Arendelle forges; it wavered from one end to the other. But it was sharp, and pointy, and that was enough for a first try. _

_Anna giggled as Elsa tapped her on both shoulders._

"_I pronounce you…er…Lady Anna! Of Arendelle!" Elsa said grandly, but quietly. The effect was ruined when she burst out giggling, and the sword dissolved in her hand into snowflakes that scattered through the room._

_Anna laughed and chased after them. "Hey, bring it back!"_

"_Nope. Your first royal quest is to catch them all," Elsa said, and blew a very immature raspberry at her little sister._

"_It was so much prettier than mine," Anna said wistfully._

_Elsa ruffled her hair. "When you become a real knight I'll make you a better one."_

_Anna stared up at the motes of ice that danced all around her, the light from the moon outside reflecting off them, making Elsa's room sparkle. "I'll never be a real knight," she said, and Elsa could see the sadness in the way she spoke._

_She stood and went over to her little sister and put her arms around her. "When I'm queen I'll make you a real knight," she whispered._

"_Promise?"_

"_Promise."_

* * *

"You should get some sleep Elsa. You have a big day ahead of you tomorrow," the king said with a smile, closing the curtains of the drawing room as the sun faded through red and yellow and orange, to let the night rise to take its place.

"I'm not that sleepy father," Elsa said, and then immediately yawned.

The door shut with a _click_ as Anna waved and left the room for her own bed, perfectly content to sleep the rest of the day away if she could – Anna had always loved sleep, it was the getting up part she had trouble with – leaving Elsa and her father alone in the small drawing room, fireplace still going.

King Agdar coughed. "My dear, listen…" he said, and reached for the mantelpiece. Elsa watched as he brought down a small blue box, wrapped in ribbons.

"It's too early father," she said. She wanted to smile too, but she was watching her father, and his expression wasn't that of a man giving his daughter a sneak birthday present. "…Father?"

The king handed over the box. "Listen Elsa. Today's a very important day, we both…we both know that. Important for you and therefore, eventually, to the kingdom."

Elsa wanted to sigh but kept it back out of respect. _More talking about obligations._ "Of course father."

"Open it please."

She did so, the blue wrapping paper giving way to a small blue box. She smiled. She had always loved blue, ever since…

"Elsa…"

She lifted the gloves from the box, feeling the silk running through her fingers as she did so. She looked up at the king.

She knew what the gloves were for.

"Elsa tomorrow is _so_ important, _please_ understand."

"…How could you?" she said, so quietly Agdar nearly didn't hear it at all.

"Elsa," the king said, a note of impatience through his voice.

_Bury it,_ Elsa's brain told her. But she couldn't. "Haven't I been perfect?" she asked, heart close to breaking in her chest. "Hasn't all this time been good enough?"

The king sighed and tried to ignore the sound his own heart was making. It was for her own good, it really was. "Please consider what would happen Elsa." He knelt down and grasped his daughter's hand in his own. He had dreaded this conversation for hours, weeks, _years._ But he had to do it. The old dreams had come back the closer they came to the ball. Peasants and mobs and torches and pitchforks. "We have to conceal it Elsa."

"I _can!_" Elsa said, almost _shouted._ She felt an anger, the anger she hadn't felt when she had been talking with Anna, and thought it was all just so unfair. "I've done it all these years! What does-"

"Your mother agrees with me," the king said, and felt just a little rotten. She had agreed to the gloves, eventually, but, he suspected, only because she was afraid for her little baby, not because she agreed that she was dangerous_._

_I only want what's best for you_.

_I _know_ what's best for me!_

She took the gloves, in the end. A seventeen year-old's adult arguments didn't work and turned into a fifteen year-old's wheedling deals and complaints, down to a ten year-old's complaints about unfairness. By the end Elsa had regressed right down to a small child's glaring and breath-holding. She had hated every second of it and in the end she simply couldn't convince him.

She took the gloves.

* * *

_It was a week later, and she didn't know what she was doing._

"_Your majesty," Kristoff said in surprise, coming out of his room. He was still buttoning up his shirt. He glanced up and down the corridor to make sure the coast was clear, then… "Elsa, hey, what's up?" he asked, as Elsa stared at him, biting her lip._

"_Kristoff."_

"_What?"_

"_We're friends right?"_

"_I…" he paused, thrown off._

"_Well?"_

_He shrugged. "Of course. You and Anna and Sven are pretty much my _only_ friends, but-"_

_She cut him off. "Friends help each other out."_

"…_Of course."_

"_Kristoff I need you to do something for me and not complain or ever, _ever_ ask why."_

"_Whoa, wait, what. If this is about-"_

"_I need you to kiss me."_

"_-about the time you and Annaahahha what?" If Kristoff's brain had been a locomotive it would have derailed and spun off into the nearest village._

_Elsa bounced up and down on the balls of her perfectly-dressed feet. "Please let's just do this," she said, much the same way Kristoff imagined she would talk about someone asking her to recite a poem for a class._

_In the end he simply gave up. "Fine," he said, and stepped forward to meet Elsa's lips._

_And then stepped back a second later to see Elsa opening her eyes. He stared at her, and she stared back. "…Did it help?"_

_Elsa looked thoughtful. "It did. Thank you for the help," Elsa said, formally, as if he had just helped repair a horseshoe on her favourite horse._

_Kristoff watched as the crown princess strode off back towards the stairs leading to the castle-proper, out of the servant's quarters. He ran a finger across his lips. _

Now what the hell was that all about? _he thought._

_Elsa could have told him but she was wrapped up in her own head as she walked, not towards the upper castle as Kristoff had thought, but to a different section of the servant's quarters._

_She had to know. It was that simple. Fascination and disgust and more than a little gear churned in her gut but she _had to know.

_If she could have gathered more information from books and knew that way she would have done so. If she could have gotten the answer through prayer – and she had considered it, she really had – she would have done it._

_But those ways wouldn't work, and she had to _know_._

"_Your majesty," Eva said as she opened the door. She was dressed in a simple white bedrobe that flowed over her body and down to her feet. Somehow even clothes the woman gave off something even Elsa could detect. Something primal that made her stomach ball up in knots._

I will not be scared of a mere servant girl._ "Eva," Elsa said coldly._

"_How can I serve your majesty?" Eva asked with that voice, that same gods-damned voice that had spoken so little and implied so much at the wine-cellar._

"_I…" Elsa started and stopped, as Eva stepped forward, closer, far too close. "I want you to stay away from my sister," she said with as much force as she could manage._

_Deep brown eyes looked into her own, warm breath coming out of her mouth against Elsa's face. "Of course your majesty," Eva said, and smiled. Elsa watched as the girl's tongue wetted her lips. "If there's anything I can-"_

_Elsa kissed her. The same way she kissed Kristoff. Or at least she tried to. The second their lips touched a questing tongue was lapping at her mouth, and a hand grabbed her own and placed it on top of something warm and soft, and Elsa felt something rough and pebbly between her fingers. Her hand moved automatically and Eva smiled into Elsa's mouth._

"_Like that."_

_She gasped pulled back and ran, without wondering how it would look, feet kicking at the hem of her skirt as she hurried away and back to where she belonged. Back to the castle where the only confusing things would be her classes on economics and trade and the treaties Arendelle had with other countries._

_Before she knew it she was in the central garden, the sun still not fully risen to banish the night, sitting on the single bench there and trying not to cry. Her lips still tingled and her fingers still felt electric where they had been placed on…on her chest._

_In comparison, kissing Kristoff had felt like a dry chunk of wood._

_She could have cried._

* * *

She opened her eyes slowly and smiled.

_Happy birthday to me._

Someone else was thinking the same thing too, because that pounding wasn't a headache, or cannons sieging the castle, but someone banging on her door.

She didn't bother over-dressing that day, because she knew elsewhere in the castle there was a special dress waiting just for her. A simple white shirt and long black skirt would do for now. Finally she opened the do-

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELSAAAAAAA!"

"Happy birthday m'lady."

"Happy birthday, your majesty."

Elsa looked at Kai and Gerda and smiled, then down at Anna who looked positively radiant. "Thank you everyone." She gathered Anna into a huge hug. "Thank you Anna."

At a tap on her shoulder Elsa looked up to see Gerda smiling at her. "It's time, your majesty. Your dress is waiting."

Elsa was about to reply when she heard a gasp, and turned to see Anna staring out of the window, eyes as wide as a dinner plate. "What is it Anna?"

"Look," her little sister said, pointing.

Elsa stood next to her sister, and did so. Beyond the glass and the courtyard, Elsa and Anna could see from outside Elsa's room all the way to the town, where ships were docked and people were milling in the square in uniforms and clothing Elsa had never seen before. That wasn't what Anna was gasping at though, as Elsa followed her sister's finger to stare and see the two guards at the top of the courtyard, a line of men pushing at the huge oaken gates. Slowly they opened, and Elsa's soul soared.

She could have cried.

* * *

**cobraygordon dot tumblr dot com for chapter notes. As always feedback is appreciated.****  
**

**I think if I write another Frozen fic after AISTB it'll be the exact opposite of the one I have unfolding here. It'll be the fluffiest of the fluffy. Like a bunch of blow-dried puppies. Everything will be sunshine and roses and will turn out okay and from chapter-fucking-one it will be great for everyone. It's the modern day, two queens: Queen Anna [Whatever] of a small Mediterranean country, newly crowned after the abdication due to age (NO DEATHS HERE NO SADNESS ONLY FLUFF) of her parents and the apple of the world media's eye, the beautiful young queen trying to find a way to keep her country afloat in the middle of a global recession and trying to get herself taken seriously by a bunch of old white parliamentarians (_Hans!?_). Queen Elsa of the small Scandanavian country of Arendelle, making a name for herself and her country as the new science and research capital of Europe. It's the New Year celebration and trying to escape from the relentless muck-rakers (Hans!?) Anna wanders into the private booth of a certain elder royal. Sparks, romance, etc. Two royals trying to forge a friendship and more as the entire world watches and tries to take advantage of them (_HANS!?_). We'll see. ****More in the tumblr, as I think.  
**


	10. A Sky Painted Red

"This is it."

"I know Anna."

"All these people."

"I know Anna."

"No turning back now. What we've been waiting for."

"_I know Anna_ you're not helping me!"

She tugged down on her skirt again. A gorgeous blue silk that matched her eyes and made her gasp when she'd first seen it, wrapped tightly around her in a ballgown that covered shoes – flat, thank God, there was no way she would be able to dance in the thin heels the dressmaker had originally suggested - that felt in danger of slipping off her shoulders, covered with a long blue silk scarf decorated with silver cloth in whorls and patterns that shifted in the light. Anna had taken one look and gasped.

Now the dress that had seemed like such a good fit when she had put it on – or more accurately had stood in silence as it had been assembled around her – had somehow turned from smooth and airy to clammy and sticky in the five-minute walk from the dressing-room to the doors of the grand ballroom. Every step made her feel like something was going wrong in it and she wondered what her mother had been _thinking_ to put her in something so delicate and frail, no matter how much she told herself it was just nerves. She felt like the skirt was hiking up past her knees, or the shawl was about to wrap once too many times and choke her, or her shoes were going to slip on the floor and send her flying down into-

"Yep. This is it," Anna said, bouncing on the heels of her shoes, a pair identical to Elsa's.

Elsa glanced sideways at Anna. If Elsa was meant to look resplendent in blue and white, Anna was subdued in green and red. Where Elsa shimmered in silk Anna shifted in crushed velvet, and where Elsa's dress hugged her like a second skin, Anna's dress came off her in ruffled waves like green ocean spray.

Elsa put a hand on Anna's shoulder to stop her from bouncing all the way out of her dress, her own incredibly nervousness momentarily eclipsed by the need to help her little sister take care of hers. "Calm down Anna." She could feel her shaking through her clothes."

Anna spun on her heels to look at her sister. "It's been so long," she whispered with tears in her eyes.

"There, there, dear," the queen whispered, putting a hand around her daughter's waist.

"The royal majesties will enter first," the herald said quietly to the king, who was staring at the door with an expression that to the man looked stoic, but the queen knew was hiding fear. "They will announce themselves and give a short speech, and then your majesty Lady Elsa will come next, followed by Lady Anna."

Elsa stared at the oaken doors. _It's really happening._ She felt years slipping away, years with nobody to talk to except Anna and Kristoff. In her head she ran through the list of names Kai had presented her with that week, a list of all the countries' dignitaries, royalty and nobles who Arendelle counted as their friends. Even her gloves – blue silk to match her dress of course – were forgotten in the pleasant haze of euphoria Elsa felt herself surrounded by.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked to see her father smiling down at her.

"I'm proud of you Elsa," King Agdar whispered gently. "My darling."

_Then take these gloves away from me,_ she didn't reply. "I love you, father."

The murmur on the other side of the door had increased as they stood there, from the low rumble of the avalanche's first pebbles to the dull roar of the sliding snowbank. Elsa flinched as from inside the castle ancient grandfather clocks began to strike noon.

"Don't be afraid Elsa," her mother said.

"We're right here-" her father said.

"-with you," Anna finished with a smile, and this above all the other words of encouragement was what gave her the confidence she needed to throw off her shaking and smile, as in the grand ballroom beyond the small brass band struck up Arendelle's anthem. The doors swung open and Elsa gasped, closing her eyes to block out the blinding light that was streaming in through windows that been closed for more than a decade.

"_Their royal majesties, King Agdar and Queen Idun of Arendelle!" _the herald boomed to the space. Elsa's breath hitched in her throat. There had to be a hundred people in the place. More. Two hundred. It was overwhelming. She looked past her parents and saw them all staring up. Old men flanked by ceremonial guards in the colours of other states and kingdoms, women in dresses of endless colours bowing like reeds in the wind. Young men who stared past the king and queen and who seemed to be looking directly at her. Oh God, they were!

_Did I really want this?_

_I can't._

She couldn't. She couldn't do it. Her brain sent thoughts down to her feet like a jockey whipping his horse but they just wouldn't move. Weeks of preparation and years of pining and waiting and suddenly the day was here and she just. Couldn't. Move. Half a second more and people would notice, and ask questions. It would be a disaster. Her father would…_her father would…_

She felt her hands turn cold as ice.

_NO! NO NO NO NO NO!_

Then as quickly as the ice came it vanished, as a warm hand gripped Elsa's own. "I'm right here with you," Anna said, still staring down and smiling at the assembled royalty of half a continent. "Always."

Elsa smiled at her little sister. "Thank you."

Anna's eyes blazed as they stared into Elsa's. "Let's go, your _highness._"

"_Her royal highness, Crown-Princess Elsa of Arendelle!" _the herald roared, glancing back at them just in time. His eyes went wide as dinner-plates, and just as quickly he turned back to face the ballroom- _"ANDHERHIGHNESSPRINCESSANNAOFARENDELLE!"_ He glared at the pair as he passed by, and Anna hid her mouth behind her hand and stuck her tongue out as she passed

They walked down the staircase together, and amidst the riotous applause descended into the chaos.

* * *

Anna stayed near her at first, whispering in her ear, a friendly touch at her side when the eyes staring at her in appraisal and evaluation became too much. Eventually though she was called away by her parents, and for the first time in as long as she could remember Elsa was alone among unfamiliar faces.

"A pleasure your highness," the man currently facing her said. His moustache seemed to reach from one side of his head to another and she had to try hard to stare at him rather than his facial hair. The herald who was following her around like a shadow and whose main duty was to steer her from one important dignitary to another had whispered a name and a country into her ear and she had slotted it into her memory with all the others. Elsa was learning quickly to remember a person's words in direct proportion to how close their country was to Arendelle. _Sweden, a baron. Albin, Anton, something like that. Wants to discuss access to gold mines, and probably examine the wine-cellar too._ "You're every inch as charming as the rumours," the man said, lightly kissing the glove Elsa had reached up. _At least they're good for this._ Half a dozen wizened old men so far had done the same, and more to come. At least the ladies stopped at a curtsey, although maybe she wouldn't mind if- _Focus Elsa._

"It's a pleasure to finally meet Al- baron," she replied, smiling as 'enchantingly' as she could, something that her lessons that week had emphasised but meant very little to her. "The first of many meetings I hope."

"My exact words your highness," the man replied. "As a matter of fact there are several things I am hoping to discuss with-"

Before the ambassador could unload his spiel onto her though Elsa was shuffled away by the herald, closely followed by-

"Kai, thank the lord."

"How are you holding up your highness?" Kai asked. He looked resplendent in black and white, eyes darting around the noise and hustle of the ballroom, looking for errant or slacking butlers to scold.

"Quite well thank you," she said as formally as she could, still keeping the smile plastered over her face. "How many more people are in this place?"

"Several hundred your highness," Kai said, and ignored the little squeak of panic Elsa gave. "Although only a fraction of those are people of any real importance."

"Then who are the rest?" Elsa asked, grabbing a canapé from a passing tray.

"Tourists," Kai replied, and even through the thick veneer of formality and decorum she could hear the ever so slight sneer in his voice.

_Come to look at the mysterious hidden princess,_ she thought, with roughly the same feeling about it. She heard her name called. _Another round begins,_ she thought, and looked up to see-

"Your _most_ royal highness, it is such a _joy_ to finally meet you. _Such _a pleasure to finally meet the scion of our most important trading partner," the man said. He barely reached to Elsa's shoulder, and it took her a second to realise that it wasn't some unfortunate barbering accident but a toupee that was somehow attached to his head. _And another handlebar moustache. Of course._ "_Please_ allow me to introduce myself. I am-"

"The Duke of Weselton, of course," Elsa said quietly, entranced by the strange bobbing and weaving of the man.

The Duke's face lit up. "Ah! Familiar with me I see! And of course why shouldn't you be, when we share such close-"

_Lucky guess._ Somehow she had just _known_. "-Trading partners, yes," Elsa finished for him before he could devolve into endless flowery sentences. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you your grace." _Although I predict it won't be for much longer. _"She looked over his shoulder and pretended to see someone else. "If you'll excuse me however I must…"

"But of course, of course!"

Elsa beat a hasty retreat from the man, munching down on the canapé she had palmed and trying to search for Anna. It took time to spot a flash of emerald cloth and red hair in a heaving ballroom that seemed to be filled with all the colours of the rainbow, but finally she managed it, finding her sister talking animatedly with a stunned-looking penguin of a man.

"-even talk to me about the weather. The sun only makes the ice slippery."

"Well of course your majesties would be more than welcome to visit in the summer. My son would be more than delighted to-"

"Anna."

Anna turned at the sound of her sister's voice. "Elsa!" she said in delight as behind her the man sputtered out whatever he was eating and adjusted his bow-tie. Kai didn't even bother to whisper his name to her. One of the tourists, eager to get a look at the secrets of Arendelle's family. Well, he was getting an eyeful of them both. "Everyone here's so nice!" Anna whispered giddily as Elsa made her excuses and led the both of them away.

"That's because they want to introduce you to their sons," Elsa whispered back, grabbing the first glass she saw from the butler that had somehow appeared. Had her father hired new servants for the event? She didn't recognise half the people she saw, and it made her nervous. _A decade of seeing the same faces will do that Elsa, get a hold of yourself. _A mean smile twitched across her face as she looked at Anna. "Don't look so smug Anna, In three years it'll be you on the chopping block."

_Nice metaphor._

"A joke? I'd be honoured to join in, your highnesses," a deep voice spoke from behind Elsa, so close it make the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

The middle-aged man behind her was easily one of the tallest at the ball, at least a head higher than Anna. He stood out in a blue suit covered by a white jacket witha very high collar, every inch of his skin covered, unlike some of the younger men present who seemed to delight in leaving an appropriate amount of muscle on show. He even wore white gloves. Brown eyes stared at her from underneath a mop of reddish-brown hair, and Elsa had to tilt her head back a little as she kept eye contact and smiled. He didn't smile back. His face looked…unlived-in. Very few wrinkles for a man his age. Perfectly fine-looking and healthy, maybe even a little handsome, but expressionless and unmoving, like it was still waiting for its owner to put it on.

"_Prince Staas of the Southern Isles, and-"_

"And his wife, Kalyna," the tall white man interrupted Kai, holding up his hand and the dark-haired woman attached to it. Dressed plainly in a dark red dress, she bowed demurely before stepping back, behind her husband.

"A pleasure," Elsa said, trying to remember where the Southern Isles where. Somewhere near Denmark she was sure but… "How are you enjoying the ball?" she asked.

"Perfectly fine, thank you," Staas said, not a single note of inflection in his voice matching the words he said. "Arendelle has been such a mystery for so long, how could I resist the invitation? I won out over my other brothers to attend."

_That_ she remembered. The servant-girls had been tittering over it for days. An old king, and twelve brothers. They dotted Scandinavian balls and high society like the drops of rain after a stone is thrown into a lake, half of them hunting for wives and the other half sitting around waiting for their father to die. At least they hadn't sent an unmarried one. "And we're luckier for it," she replied by rote. So much of what she said seemed to come from a script written by Kai and the others. If anyone had asked her to pick she'd take talking with Anna and Kristoff any day over this…this _game._ It seemed like half the conversations she had taken part in today had been empty pleasantries and the other half had been small barbs trying to wrench information out of her.

"Certainly we would be glad to host a similar ball in honour of your generous invitation," the man said, and Elsa realised that he sounded…_bored._ Of all the people – all the men – she had met at the ball so far he was the only one who wasn't eying her or Anna like they were just another item on the menu that they might one day be invited to taste. While Prince Staas didn't look like he was enjoying talking with her at all, she still preferred him to the endless parade of hungry suitors and fathers-of behind her.

She smiled, and the smile was just a little less fake. "We'll certainly entertain the offer, your highness. A change of scenery would be nice after-" She stopped but too late as her mouth ran away from her. What _had_ Kai put in these glasses?

Staas nodded, as if he had expected the response. "Ours is a sunnier climate certainly. My wife is from even further south than I, she's never seen so much snow and ice in her life, especially not in summer."

"We're used to the cold," Elsa replied, with the sudden annoying feeling that she was defending herself from an attack she couldn't see.

"I'm sure. Why, from the stores and statues I've seen on the way here Arendelle seems to practically worship the stuff." The murmuring of the throng behind them increased ever so slightly, and Prince Staas turned to see… "Well, it appears I've taken up enough of your time, your highness. 'Till our next." He bowed slightly as he passed the couple who were approaching Elsa. "Your majesties."

"Your highness," King Agdar said, barely glancing at the prince. "My dear, how are you doing?" he asked Elsa softly, grasping her gloved hands in his own. She knew he felt the cold under the gloves when his expression clouded just a little bit, the lines on his forehead deepening just a little more.

_Father could you be any more transparent? _"I'm perfectly fine, just a little overwhelmed," she replied.

"If you need to take a short rest before we eat, you can…"

She twisted her hands out of his grip before frustration made her any colder. "I'm _perfectly_ fine," she replied through gritted teeth disguised as a smile. Behind the king Anna watched her, and Elsa could see the worry there, which only made it worse. She focussed on her father. "Just a little too much to drink maybe. Some real food might…"

The king smiled, mollified. "Of course my dear. Kai?" This last to the old man behind Elsa, who simply nodded and moved off, beginning the invisible dance of servants and heralds that would move the entire unwieldy collection of delegates, princes and curious nobles out of the ballroom and into the dining halls.

Elsa felt a warm hand brush against her own, and her fingers wandered across Anna's hand in turn. Just having her sister there with her was a comfort, and she felt a huge burst of love and warmth towards her little sister. "Thanks for staying with me Anna."

"Why, anything for my dear sister on the day of her coming of age," Anna said, loudly and formally. Elsa turned her head with a raised eyebrow, and Anna leaned forward until she could feel the breath against her ear. "A knight stays by her princess," her little sister whispered under her breath, and winked.

A couple of hours for dinner, then finally the event she was looking forward to; the hunt. _Finally._ Elsa knew from Kristoff that the horses had been prepared and ready all week. An informal gathering of a few of the more important nobles. She didn't care that she would most likely have to put up with that awkward and flailing Weselton man, or endure the affections of whatever princes her father had encouraged to come along, or even that she didn't like horse-riding all that much. It was outside the walls, in daylight, without having to listen at doors and corners for approaching footsteps.

She couldn't wait.

* * *

"Feel better now?" Elsa asked as Anna practically ran behind the curtain in the small dressing room and practically tore her dress from her body. She could see her shadow moving behind the partition and smiled as Anna stretched out. She couldn't blame her, after the last two hours of sitting and small-talk.

They'd made their excuses as quickly as they could after dinner, Elsa walking a little more stiffly than before they had sat down. A form-fitting dress combined with a big dinner was a recipe for disaster and torn stitching.

"A _lot. _Yeesh, these dresses, how do you even breath in yours?"

"By never eating, and learning how to walk like a penguin."

"I did notice you wolfing down those chocolates. I wanted some!"

"Too slow."

"Meanie."

"I'll make it up to you when we get back," Elsa replied. "Father has some kind of chocolate fountain he's been trying to set up."

Anna gasped and rushed to the edge of the screen to stare in amazement at Elsa. _"A chocolate WHAT?"_ she gasped, hanging precariously and staring at her sister in frank amazement.

Elsa stared back, in the same. "_ANNA!"_

Anna looked down at her exposed chest and blushed. She grabbed the shirt from around her waist and tried to button it. "Sorry! Sorry! I-" Her mouth stopped working before she could finish the sentence though, as Elsa rushed forward and dragged the shirt back down again. "Elsa what are you?"

"_What's this?"_ Elsa said.

It took a second for Anna to realise what Elsa was actually looking at, and her blush deepened not in embarrassment but in shame. "I didn't say anything because I didn't want to worry you, it just- _AHAHA!"_

Elsa traced a hand down the thin scar that went from just below Anna's left shoulder blade, down the valley between her breasts, and stopped just under the sternum. She looked up at her sister, who was giggling at Elsa's touch. "This isn't funny An- _this isn't funny Anna!" _she hissed quietly.

Anna couldn't help it. The giggles threatened to turn into laughter. She knew she should feel bad about the look of worry on her sister's face, but the whole situation was just too funny. "It's fine Elsa, I'm fine. Honest. Ahaha. Please stop, your hands are freezing."

Elsa looked at the scar. _Scars. _The long thin one, and another one, not a long and thin at all but a _patch_ of discoloured skin darker than the rest of her, that sat just over her heart. She looked into Anna's eyes, Anna who had finally managed to stop laughing. "What _happened?_ You promised if you were going to…going to go out again…that you'd let me know!"

"This was before you found out," Anna said, shifting from one foot to another.

"_What. Happened. Anna?"_

"Just a little scratch from a wolf. I was unlucky is all." White lies. It had been a big wolf, and Eva had helped her dress and wash it every night for a week. Hiding it from father and mother had been hard, she had pretended she had slipped and fell and bruised herself on an icy cobblestone.

Clearly Elsa had just as good a memory. "_That_ was what that was? You said you slipped and fell." She took Anna's hands in her own. "Anna, we promised we wouldn't lie to each other."

She shifted again uncomfortably. "I just…I just forgot. It was a long time ago."

"Four months isn't a long time! What about _this_ one?" Elsa said, stroking the patch of skin over her heart.

"It- _AAAAH!"_

Elsa drew her hand back quickly. "Sorry! Does it still hurt?" Elsa asked as Anna gritted her teeth and folded around her. Her skin had felt hot to the touch.

"…Little bit."

"Where'd you get it?"

Anna looked up into her eyes and spoke at _exactly_ the same time that Elsa realised how dense she was being.

"From you."

"From me. Oh Anna."

"It's fine."

"It isn't fine," Elsa whispered. "…Did I ever say sorry?"

"It wasn't your fault, not really. Look." She reached out for Elsa's hand and put it back over her heart, wincing just a little as Elsa's cold palm caressed her skin. "You saved me, remember? You protected me." She felt a surge in her chest, like the ice protecting her heart was reaching out to the person who had put it there. "You're still protecting me." She let go of Elsa's hand and reached her own around to hug her sister. "I never blamed you."

"You're not lying?" Elsa said quietly, trying to keep down the tears she didn't know she had been hoarding all through her childhood. All these years she had wondered and worried, fretted and tried to hide away, because she had never dared ask whether Anna had blamed her for the ice in her heart. For _nearly killing her._

"I would never," Anna whispered. "Promise." She reached up on tiptoes and kissed her sister's forehead, wiping away the single tear that had escaped Elsa's eye. She turned and started to button her shirt. "Now come on, or the hunt'll start without us!"

"As if _you_ needed instructions on how to hunt," Elsa teased, feeling as light as air, her forehead tingling where Anna had kissed her. Without another word between them the sisters changed into hunting leathers; green and blue leather jackets over tanned leather breeches and thick woollen shoes. "See you at the courtyard," Elsa said, leaving Anna alone for a few seconds, with her guild.

Only a _little_ guilt. She _had_ been lying, but not about what Elsa was worried about. The scar over her heart hadn't hurt at all when Elsa had touched it. Not at all.

* * *

"I do say, you and this country seem well-matched your highnesses, you look positively radiant in the snow."

"I feel it," Elsa replied with a happy smile, not feigned at all. She felt _wonderfu_ snow underneath her horses' hooves was pristine, flying up into the air in swirling clouds whenever he took a step forward. The sky was electric blue with not a cloud in sight, and even the air felt clearer than anything she could remember, not a single mote of dust to ruin it. When they had ridden across the drawbridge into the town she had fought hard to hold the tears back. There had been cheers and confetti and waves, and small children had tried to keep up with their horses, waving and shouting, and she had waved and shouted back. The entire trip to her had been filled with joy, the happiest thirty minutes of her life so far. And there would be more! Elsa and Anna had ridden close together and talked and made plans for what they were going to do the day _after_ her birthday, when the gates stayed open and they could finally come and go as they pleased.

It was perfect.

Well, almost perfect.

"May I do my lady the honour of the first catch?" the flowery little man said.

"Unless I get it first! Aha!" shouted the other.

She hadn't bothered to remember either of their names. Colin and Adams. Or something. Starting C and A at any rate. Some princes that father had liked the look of and decided to bring along with them. Weselton's Duke had tagged along as well, as had Staas and his wife, and a brace of servants at a distance to do the _actual_ work of handling the hounds the princes had brought with them, as well as carry, clean and prepare the kill if they were lucky. All of them rode horseback through the Arendelle woods just beyond the village. Elsa wondered what would happen if she just cracked the reigns and bolted. The north mountain was right there. She could hide on it forever, away from her father's side-long glances and the fawning attention of the boys.

_Better not._ She suspected Anna's presence by her side was the only thing keeping the horse underneath her behaved. She'd learned fairly young that whatever knack was needed to read a horse's mind, she didn't have it.

"-beautiful in the winter, almost as beautiful as yourself-" one of the interchangeable princes rambled on, Elsa keeping _just_ enough of her attention on the vapid boy to nod and smile back, while the rest was focussed on her father a few paces behind her, and the quiet conversation he was having with prince Staas.

"-are slightly concerned for the upswing in this pagan cult of yours, your majesty," Staas said quietly to her father.

"It isn't 'my' anything your _highness,_" her father replied, and the man seemed to back down at the not-so-subtle comparison of their positions. "The peasantry always have their little diversions, you know this. Should we become our own miniature inquisition to settle the matter? It helped your Spanish cousins _so_ well. This isn't the seventeenth century prince Staas. They can keep their little hearth-gods if it gets them through the winter."

"And yet such signs rarely bode well for a nation's stability."

King Agdar sighed and shook his head. "Oh? Are a group of superstitious housewives and nervous hunters capable of making our gold shine less bright? Or our timber less stout? Please let's not insult one another."

The southern prince shrugged, his expression unchanged and unworried. "Apologies your majesty. But I'm just the first of many who'll ask."

"And I will reply with this: That I foresee zero effects on Arendelle's trade from a 'cult' so small you could fit them all into a modestly-sized log cabin."

Elsa felt something brush against her hand, and glanced down to see Anna's fingers picking at her glove. She canted her horse closer and gripped her hand; _don't worry so much._

Whatever reply the king was about to give was lost as the deep howl of the servant's hunting horn sounded through the woods. One blow. A wolf, probably already half-dead from exhaustion from being driven by the hounds.

"Elsa, watch," Anna whispered. She turned to the two princes, opened her eyes as wide as they could go and adopted an expression of enchanting innocence. "Oh! That sounds dangerous! I _do_ so hope it is not a large one being driven towards us!"

Almost as one the two princes drew their swords, their horses rearing up heroically. "Don't far my lady, we'll protect the jewels of Arendelle."

_Oh my god. _"Please, go do so," Elsa said.

The two princes must have been lost in visions of marriage because neither of them noticed how dryly she had said it. They galloped off towards the sound of the horn, half the guards following them, leaving Elsa and Anna alone with their parents, the Southern Isles prince, and a handful of guards.

"Anna. Elsa, please be gracious" the king said, the warning in his voice being somewhat negated by the smile on his face. "These are our guests."

"But they look like they're having so much fun," Anna said, smiling after the enthusiastic princes.

"The hunt does not appeal to you, your highness?" Staas asked, looking at Elsa.

_Grace._ She smiled up at him. "Just a little tired after all this excitement."

"You take after your father then? A quieter life appeals? And you, Princess Anna?"

"Prince Staas, mind yourself."

"Apologies again your majesty. I feel the wine at dinner has brought upon an odd mood," he apologised, not even attempting to hide the lie.

_Diplomacy, Elsa._

"Apology accepted your highness," Elsa said, and squeezed Anna's hand to make her parrot the same. She didn't look but she could feel the anger in her little sister's grip. Most likely the prince did too.

The king jerked the reigns of his steed a little harder than he meant to, and opened his mouth to speak. Whatever he was about to say was lost though, as-

"Elsa look."

Before she could do so Elsa's gaze was blocked as Anna jinked her horse in front of her own. She didn't need eyes to know though, because she heard the low growl.

Growls.

A pack.

"_Guards!"_ the king roared, and suddenly the forest was full of flying powder as the guards practically flew to the royal's sides. "Where are those princes?" Agdar asked, in much the same way you would ask where your cloak was before leaving the house. "Take us home, guards?"

"Stay back sire," the man said.

Elsa hated wolves. She had seen them at a distance before as a young girl, out with her parents on whatever morale-boosting journey they had been making in the country. Every time a lone shape was seen slinking through the woods the guards would form ranks and shout and rattle their sabres to scare it off. Elsa remembered getting a single look from between the wooden slats of the carriage. It had kept its distance but even from so far away Elsa could see the snarl on its flattened head, and the glowing yellow eyes that reflected baleful light at them. Elsa had no illusions of wolves as noble guardians of the mountain. If it had been able to get at her it would have eaten her.

Elsa's hands clutched her horse's flanks. A huge mistake.

"_ELSA!"_

Elsa's horse reared up with a shriek as two burning cold objects gripped it, and suddenly the sky and ground were switching places as she was thrown down onto the snow hard enough to smack her head onto the hard soil beneath the snow, so hard the world momentarily went black. She looked up into the clear blue sky and thought _it isn't night yet, why can I see stars?_

"_GUARDS!"_

Elsa tried to climb to her feet and it felt like her brain was rattling around inside her skull like one of Anna's marbles. She reached out to grip a tree that looked close to her, but only found air, and she fell back down to her knees where the world wasn't moving quite so much.

"Elsa, are you alright?" a melodious sound quavered next to her.

_That's Anna's voice. _"'na?"

"_ANNA GET BACK ON YOUR HORSE THIS INSTANT!"_ the sound of a god boomed above her.

"_No!"_ the gorgeous voice shouted up at god, and Elsa heard something that could have been an icicle shattering or the sky ripping apart.

_I can't see._ She blinked and tried to erase the stars from her sight, vaguely knowing that something was wrong with her. She was kept from falling to the ground by something warm pressing itself against her side, and she reached for it.

"I'll protect you," the shape said, holding something long and bright in it's hand.

Elsa opened her mouth to thank the figure when she saw them. Fuzzy mounds moving through the white world in front of her. She watched in calm detachment as a long and thin line opened on the one closest to her, filled with yellow triangles.

_Those are teeth,_ her brain screamed at her as it tried to shake itself awake. _Those are wolves. Wolves! WOLVES!_

Yellow eyes, too close. She panicked, tried to stand again. She was aware of things – not wolves, taller – moving behind her, trying to grab at her, but-

The wolf snarled, and leapt.

Anna met it.

As if they were rival countries on some far-away battlefield, the guards and the rest of the pack rushed forward with war cries that were practically the same.

She tried to keep up but the world lurched around her. The warm thing her brain said was called _Anna_ stayed by her side as the confusing world around her became a lurching cascade of blue-shirted shapes against white-fanged blurs.

"_YOUR HIGHNESS!" _The words arrived in her brain meaningless, incomprehensible. She felt some vague connection to them and tried to stand, looking up in time to see it. The white thing came closer to her, mouth of jagged rocks coalescing out of it like a magic-eye picture, two glowing yellow orbs coming at her.

_It will kill and eat you._

The world sharpened around her as her breath frozen in her throat. She raised a hand as if doing so could ward off the charging creature, but before her palm was halfway up the Anna-shape stood in front of her, and suddenly where the world had been only blurred white before, Elsa saw red splashing across it, and suddenly the killing thing that had been coming for her was veering off making a noise that seemed to reach through her ears and grab at her heart. It hurt. _It_ hurt.

"_ANNA!"_ the voice of god shouted again, descending from the heavens to rush towards the Anna-shape.

The white thing lurched and flew sideways away from her, now coated with red, but before Elsa could think to feel relief through the cloud that was steadily dissipating from her brain. Anna – her sister, _her sister –_ screamed out in fear as the thing Elsa remembered was called a wolf veered away, side open and bleeding, and through its own fog of pain leapt for the next closest thing it could see. Another shape whose name returned to Elsa just in time.

_Father._

"DADDY!"Anna screamed.

Elsa didn't think. Didn't think about whatever would happen afterwards, or about what anyone else would think. All she saw in that split-second was a berserk animal, all muscle and jaws, headed directly for her father.

_Use me,_ something said, that could have come from inside herself or from the very air around her, and in her drunken concussion Elsa didn't have the self-control to refuse it.

So she didn't.

The world turned blue.

Then black.

* * *

**Chapter notes on the tumblr as usual. Also thinking about sticking small side-stories there that aren't really long enough or important enough to deserve a spot in the main narrative. This week also marks the entirely arbitrary milestone of ten weeks without missing an update, jeez. I should take a break! No just kidding. Next week: Chapter 11, Elsa Dies In Lava.**


	11. Well Now They Know

_She wandered in and out of existence like a patient in a sanatorium. Sometimes lucidity would visit for a few minutes, scattershot and hazy like a visiting relative who wanted to leave as quickly as was possible, and she would suddenly find herself awake and crying out for people whose names she couldn't remember and whose faces she didn't know. She would find a word or a phrase and shout it out 'till someone came to help her and then claw away from the strangers who came to help. Only one person's existence shone through the fever._

_She wanted Anna. She needed Anna. But Anna never came, only people she didn't know to give her clothes that burned her forehead and feed her liquids that tasted rotten and choking in her throat._

_She lashed out at them in fear, her hands looking like great white claws in her fog-filled vision, scoring marks into the walls and bedding and making them retreat with wordless shouts. Eventually they stopped coming, except for four. Two she couldn't reach, and she screamed in frustration as her hands moved around and melted away as she tried to push them back from her bedside. One who she could reach fine endured her hands to feed and change her. The last one brushed her hair and whispered into her ear, until her scratching hand found its mark, and then never returned. Anna was all she wanted. Anna was who she needed. She wanted Anna to come into the room and hug and comfort her and laugh with her, and drive away the faceless ghosts that were her world._

_But Anna never came._

_So Elsa slept, and wandered the mountainside of her fevered dreams, and met her there._

_And outside Elsa's locked door the world continued to turn._

* * *

Anna faced the locked door that led to her sister.

"I demand to see my sister."

"I regret that I cannot allow that, your highness."

Every time it broke Gerda's heart a little more to say it. But she had her instructions, and knowing her fondness towards both of them the king had made it absolutely clear that there would be no creative rule-breaking or nudge-wink endeavours to misunderstand her order.

_The princess Anna will not be allowed through the doors to visit her sister._

The coldness in his majesty's voice, more than anything else, had made Gerda obey it. And it was such a very hard command to obey.

Every hour Anna had come up and asked her. The first time, after they had returned from the woods and the castle was in an absolute uproar, Anna had almost ran past her before the two guards had barred her way. She had turned towards Gerda with such an expression of worry and hope that she had almost folded right there. But the king was the king, and even though for almost all the time she had served him King Adgar had been a very lenient and accommodating ruler, that day he had been _The King,_ and she didn't dare disobey him. After the first refusal it had gotten easier to say no. But not less heartbreaking.

_What's wrong? Is she sleeping? I promise I'll be quiet. I won't wake her up._

_What's wrong? Is Elsa okay? I can help. I've read books, I know how to wrap bandages and draw water. Let me help!_

_What's wrong? Is she dead? _Is she dead?_ Just tell me Gerda, please. Tell me. I have to know._

_What's wrong? Just a fever? How can I help? I know about spices, medicine, things like that. Let me try._

_What's wrong? Please Gerda just let me make sure she's…that she's being taken care of? Please?_

_Oh god please just let me in. Let me see her! I need to see her!_

_GERDA PLEASE!_

_Gerda as your princess I command you let me through!_

_Gerda I…I'm warning you! Just let me in._

_Gerda I demand you let me in._

_I demand to see my sister._

And so on, and so on, as the first day had turned into two days, then three, and Anna's message had turned from begging and pleading into an intense emotionless statement that seemed to suck the warmth from Anna's eyes even as she said it. Kai brought her drinks when he was able to, but duty to the king kept him away, and so for most of the time Gerda sat along with two silent guards. Men and women in expensive coats and with small black cases had been permitted entry, but none of the doctors ever made more than one trip, even though Gerda heard whispers about gold passing hands. On the second day the king had come through, and even though Gerda had strained her eyes she had heard nothing, except for a faint crackling when his majesty had pushed – with some difficulty – the door open. She had heard a cry and a scream and the king had left.

Later in the first day – and then again in the second and third – the king had come again, and the queen with him, only for the results had been the same. No voices, no conversation, only faint cries.

"Gerda?" the king had asked the third time.

"Your majesty?" Gerda had replied, bowing.

"Who was the crown princess close to in the castle?"

_Anna_, Gerda wanted to say but knew better. "The ice-gatherer and stable-hand, Kristoff Bjor-"

"The troll boy?" the king had asked, looking around at the head maid with…surely not…with shock in his eyes.

"Him sir," Gerda confirmed, thinking to herself _what's one more mystery solved._ She knew the old rumour about how Kristoff had just appeared one day at the castle but had put it out of her mind. Hearing it from the king though…

"Call him."

So she had, and when it had been Kristoff's turn to leave Elsa's sick-room it was with clothes ripped in half a dozen places, bleeding from half a dozen wounds underneath them. Castle gossip brought to her that he had exchanged a few words with the king from a still strong – if a little shaky now – knee. _Ask me next,_ Gerda had thought, but the king had only told her to keep Anna out of the room. When the next and final…challenger…went through, Gerda thought for a flash that she was going to have _words_ with Kristoff next time they met.

She had never liked Eva. She knew too much and asked too much and her eyes were always looking at you like she wanted something. If Gerda had known what a poison she would be on that first day in the yard she would have sent the girl back through the servant's gate and back into the town before she had so much as clipped the white pinafore to her skirt. But she had loyalty, this much Gerda would admit, and had served the royal family well for more than half a decade. In her service she had no problems with her performance, but privately…Gerda had been brought up a certain way. A _good_ way, and good women didn't behave the way Eva did. Gerda had saved more than one generation of the royal family, and maids and stable-boys playing in the hay was just a fact of castle life. Sometimes one of the hands would suddenly find an urgent reason to find work elsewhere closer to home, often at the same time as a blossoming romance suddenly appeared, and a reference would be written without rancour or judgement because the young were young and who could blame them? The two were bid good luck with a kiss on the cheek and a stern handshake and bid good luck. They would vanish from the castle and if a child were to be born later the dates wouldn't be scrutinised too closely.

But Eva didn't follow the old story. Although the head maid kept herself above the common gossip that didn't mean she didn't hear it coming down from below, and she heard about the way Eva acted, and when they met in the halls and corridors although the girl bowed just like all the other servants Gerda watched her eyes and saw laughter back there before the deference and courtesy. Instead of downstairs romance there were stable-boys and manservants used and simply…brushed aside. She heard darker stories too, that she put out of her mind as nonsense from jealous would-be spouses. Not just star-struck stable-boys having to be reminded to zip up their flies but young maids having to be reminded to lace their bodices. And one last rumour, which was frankly so ludicrous she only laughed at it. Not in a million years.

Gerda watched as Anna walked back down the hall away from the sickroom, as quiet as a mouse. No, a mongoose.

_Not in a million years…_

* * *

"I don't know what's going on," Anna whispered, so quietly she almost went unheard.

When the princess had appeared at her door Eva knew it wasn't for anything as petty as sex. Anna had taken one look into those deep brown eyes, infinitely patient, and had burst into tears the way she hadn't been able to in front of her father or mother. Not anymore.

"They're angry, and afraid," Eva whispered into the younger woman's ear. Anna felt like a furnace against her, even more so than usual. The pair of them laid there on the bed, the younger, slightly smaller girl curled inside the other liken they were two crescent moons.

"I hate them," she whispered, her hands tracing idle circles around Eva's own. "All she did was protect us. That's all she's ever done."

"People are afraid of what they don't understand."

Anna twisted around until they were belly to belly. "Are _you_ afraid?" Anna asked, running a single finger down and across the small bandage that now ran from Eva's collarbone to the swell of her left breast. Under other circumstances Eva might have taken that finger and moved it further, but…

There was a heartbeat of silence, then… "I was."

She had been. Kristoff had come to hat in hand – _actually_ hat in hand, the adorable fool that he was – and asked for her help. With what, she hadn't had to ask. It had been the only topic of conversation in the entire castle. Even her own aloof barrier she meticulously maintained had been breached as other servants, those she barely knew at all as well as those she knew _very_ well, had asked her what was going on.

_Is the princess a witch?_

_Is the princess a sorcerer?_

_Is the princess a goddess come again?_

This last one from a girl with starry-eyed faith in her eyes who had clutched a small iron charm around her neck. Eva had only waited an hour, then went back to Kristoff and gave him her answer. Before hardly any time had elapsed at all she had found herself in front of a pair of large doors, flanked by two guards, and that judgemental harpy Gerda standing behind her. Then suddenly she was inside the room and alone.

And fighting to keep her balance. The floor was coated in ice. The walls were coated in ice. The _ceiling_ was coated in ice. Every inch of the room from the carpets to the upholstery was coated in glittering whites and blues that hadn't just taken her breath away, they had _sucked_ it out of her the way her sister's lips tried to steal it at night. Patterns and cracks in the ice curved and arched and gravitated towards the far wall, where _she_ slept. A frozen whirlwind that centred on Crown Princess Elsa of Arendelle.

_She looks small,_ Eva had thought, staring down at a girl the same age as her, gasping for breath in a tortured fever. She had taken the bucket of warm water, and that was when it had happened. No warning. One second her highness Elsa had been laid on the bed under covers that crackled heavy with permafrost, the next she was up and clawing at her, babbling and shouting. Eva had tried to grab her hands and push her back down when a hand had brushed – just brushed – against the front of her chest. She had felt something _tug_ at her upper chest, and then heat had bloomed there, and she had backed off. Then she had felt afraid, and ran.

She had been lucky, under the circumstances. But she wasn't lying to Anna when she said she wasn't afraid anymore.

_I take what they offer and I give them what they need. _The promise she had made to herself for the way she acted. The promise she gave to parents she no longer remembered, and to God.

"Your sister is beautiful and terrifying," Eva whispered into Anna's ears as the two lay together. She felt Anna flinch at the last word, and held her tighter. The princess could have burned her up. She was so _hot._ "She's hurt. Lashing out. She needs someone to tell her it isn't her at fault."

"It isn't. It never is. It's always _them_," Anna said with a venom in her voice Eva had never heard before.

"You need to help her. You and Kristoff and whoever else."

Wide teal eyes looked up into hers. "Not you?"

Shock and fear as her hand had felt her breasts, ran across her nipples. There had been something there maybe. Possibly. But the fear had been greater. "No," Eva replied.

"I don't know if I can."

"You have to, if you-"

Whatever else Eva was about to say never left her lips.

To say the door burst open would be overdramatic. The doors in the servant's quarters barely had working locks, most of the downstairs staff being simply courteous about knocking.

_So this is how it is_, Eva thought, even her inner voice tasting bitter copper, as the door swung ajar to let Gerda and Kristoff and two of the guards enter. She pulled the blanket from her own body to cover Anna, and pushed herself off the bed to stand before the intruders naked. Only Kristoff averted his gaze with a blush. The guards simply watched, one hand on their blades.

_I will not hide. _"Excuse _me!_"

"I didn't believe it," Gerda hissed, striding forth like a righteous whirlwind. Her eyes glanced down at the bed where Anna lay, somewhere between shock and utter mortification. "Her own sister lies sick upstairs and you take her away into your own filth for…for…"

"For comfort," Eva said, and braced herself. She wasn't waiting long. Gerda's slap rang through the room like two swords clashing, and stung like a burning brand against her cheek. She would need ice. Lucky Arendelle had so much around. Ice for a princess, ice for a goddess. Ice for her.

"As if a whore like you could offer her any _comfort_!"

_I will not beg. _"Clearly more than you could. What did you give her? False promises and platitudes? '_There, there, everything will be alright in the end'_?" she said, all cold ice compared to Gerda's fury. She liked to think this was how Elsa would sound. A shame she would never find out.

Gerda spat on the floor, as if she was unwilling to let even her disdain touch Eva's body. "Guards, help this slattern gather her things, and then take her to the servant's gate."

"_NO!_"

Eva turned without being given permission as Anna leapt from the bed like a jack from his box. Immediately Kristoff put his body between the princess and the guards. Kristoff had always been a good boy. Maybe he really had been raised by trolls. Better than being raised by people. "Please, Anna, don't make this any worse."

"That is_ HER HIGHNESS you are addressing!"_ from Gerda.

"Please, not you too," that small voice begged her. _Is everything taken from me? _Anna's face said, and for the first moment since Eva had seen the princess approaching her and Kristoff across a stone courtyard, since that first uneasy kiss, since the first exhilarating and domineering tryst in the baths, and all the moments after, Eva's heart really did break for Anna. For one second. Then she patched it up again, the way she knew she would have to.

She darted forward, catching the guards by surprise, and she managed to brush her lips against Anna's. "Go to her," she whispered, before the guards pulled her back into their cold metal embrace.

The last that Eva saw of Princess Anna was a beautiful, lonely creature staring after her, eyes wide and mouth slightly open, as if waiting for a miracle that she knew would never come yet still couldn't help but hope for. Eva turned away. That wasn't the Anna she wanted to remember as they bundled her things into a rough red bag and shoved it into her hands and shoved her out the door. She wanted the Anna that came to her after a conquest, brave and triumphant, smiling and happy as they dragged each other to bed, eyes sparkling like twin emeralds. That was the Anna she would remember. That was the Anna that had dragged more out of her than amusement and base pleasure.

"Stop smiling and get out," the nameless guard snarled, shoving her at the oaken door that marked the boundary between the small courtyard and the outside of the castle.

_Yes,_ Eva thought, as the gate closed behind her.

_I could have loved you._

* * *

"Anna, come on. Please."

Kristoff didn't know what to do. Anna stumbled alongside him like a ghost, wrapped up in sheets from Ev- from the servant's quarters that she refused to let go of. She was pale, shaking.

Kristoff had spent more than a decade now taking care of everything Arendelle could throw at him. He'd burned out his nostrils shovelling endless piles of reindeer and horse manure from the stables. He'd helped carry ice-harvesters who'd been a little too careless around the cold and heavy stuff and broken bones. He'd led hunting parties out to dispose of errant wildlife that had gotten hungrier than was good for them – although for the last half year or so not so much, as a white ghost had taken over _that_ job – and he'd saved more than one foal and mare from a bad birth.

Having to escort a sniffling and naked princess through the castle was a new one though.

_Pabbie you never told me this would be part of the job._

_What would _I_ do in this situation?_

_You'd go shovel or carry something until you were too tired to remember what you were worried about. Then you'd sleep it off._

"Come on Anna. You need sleep. You'll feel better then."

"I don't want to sleep. I want to see my sister," Anna whispered.

"You can see her when she's better," Kristoff said, every inch of his skin that Elsa's hands (_not talons. Don't even think talons)_ had raked him.

"She'll never wake up."

"Don't think that."

"Everyone hates us."

Before his mind could engage to stop him Kristoff grabbed Anna by the shoulders and whirled her around until they were looking into each other's eyes. "Don't _ever_ think that Anna," he brushed an errant red lock of hair from the crying girl's head. "Don't _ever_ think you're not loved!" He reached his arms around and crushed Anna into a huge bear-hug. "You have me and Sven."

Small hands gripped at Kristoff's shirt. "Swear it," Anna half-whispered half-hissed through tears.

"I swear it," Kristoff replied without a lick of hesitation, and then Anna was pushing him away so she could look up into his eyes.

"Take me to Elsa," Anna said, in a voice that Kristoff had heard used by the king. One he knew he wouldn't disobey.

"Of course, your majesty."

_Is this the right decision? Am I doing the right thing,_ he still couldn't help but wonder though as they walked the castle to the sick-room Elsa was being held- no, that Elsa was _recuperating_ in.

Anna strode up to the guards, with Gerda nowhere in sight. No doubt making sure any sign of Eva was scrubbed away from the room they had slept in together. She felt a twinge, deep in her belly, but she wouldn't let herself be distracted by it. She stopped short before she would bump into the expressionless soldier before her. "I'm going through."

"Your highness, their majesties have commanded that-" the man began, but without the force or belief that Gerda had managed to put into the words. He knew something was happening, but he didn't know what.

"That wasn't a question. Let me pass before-" Anna stopped, as something caught her eye. Without another word to the man in front of her she turned to the second guard. Before either he or Kristoff could react, her hand darted forward at his breastplate with the speed she'd earned on dozens of nights against creatures more ruthless and faster than a simple guard. She was rewarded when her hand came back holding a small iron rectangle on a thin chain.

Maybe it was just the wind, or her own hopeful subconscious. But Anna chose to believe it was Elsa's voice she heard.

_Embrace it._

"Guardsman…?"

"Leif, your highness," the man said, sweat popping out on his forehead as the princess held evidence of pagan belief in his hand.

_Embrace it. _Anna leaned forward as far as she could and whispered. "Do you believe in the white goddess of the mountain, Leif?"

"Anna…" Kristoff's warning voice came from behind her, but she ignored him.

Leif's plain grey eyes looked down, spellbound, into Anna's shining green ones. His answer was no louder than the wind in Anna's ears. He had glanced into the room when the king and queen and the ice-boy and the maid had gone through. He'd seen. He believed. _Yes._

"She needs me. She needs your help. _Your _help. Let me through," Anna whispered. A fifteen year-old girl who barely came up to the soldier's chin, she cowed him utterly. He stepped aside.

"Hey-" the other guardsman began, stepping forwards. One step was all he made.

Anna's hand came around and when it did so she was holding the unfortunate Leif's blade, pointed directly at the second man's sternum. "Let me in," she said. She was _so close,_ and no closed door or dumb guard would stop her now. "The goddess needs me. I'm her knight. I'm going in."

The man looked to Kristoff, then to his fellow guard, and saw he'd get no help from either. Kristoff shrugged, as if to say; _what are you going to do?_ The man resisted the urge to sigh, as with a grunt he put his shoulder to the door and pushed. Ice crackled and moaned on the other side, until there was a gap large enough for Anna to slip into.

"Skjoldmøy," Leif whispered, as Anna, sword in hand, went into her sister's room, alone.

* * *

Anna held the blade aloft and hesitated before bringing it down on the icy tendrils in front of her, on the maybe-silly-maybe-not thought that maybe somehow Elsa _was_ the ice in front of her.

"Whooo. I hope not because otherwise you put on some weight sis."

Ice covered the room. Not just covering surfaces now but growing up and out, in a thousand direction, a thousand tendrils that ran between everything in the room. Like bridges reaching out, except now they were all in her way, and Anna wasn't going to let them stop her, even if they were gorgeous.

The ice silenced any noise from the rest of the castle and filtered the light streaming in from the window. Anna felt like she was chopping her way through a jungle made of ice, every curved surface se cut through bringing her closer to the centre of the frozen maelstrom, closer to Elsa.

_Please be okay. I need you. I need you I need you I need you._

"We don't have anyone else now," she whispered, and didn't realise it.

Finally after what felt like hours but was mere minutes, she sliced through a final ice curtain, to find out the thin blue sheaf was connecting the top of the four-poster bed to the nearby wall, and she found her sister.

"_ELSA!"_

She looked as frozen as the rest of the room and Anna's heart lurched with both heat and cold. She dropped the sword to her side, instantly forgotten as she looked down at her sleeping sister. Elsa was covered in ice, only her upper body visible, the rest lost as ice swept down from her chest in wild patterns so that Anna couldn't tell where the woman ended and the cloth began. She looked beautiful, peaceful.

"Not now," Anna whispered frantically as she leaned over her sister, hands burning from the cold as she placed her hands on the bed. "Ela, hey, it's me."

Silence.

"I told you I'd be here for you. I'm your knight, remember?"

"Elsa, I really need you to wake up. Everyone…everyone's worried. Mom and dad won't speak to me. They took Eva away. Everyone's afraid of us. _You have to wake up."_

"_PLEASE!"_

She collapsed across her sister's body, and wept. "I can't do this alone." She tried to grab onto her sister's lapels but her hands slipped on ice. "Please. Let me save you this time. I'm a knight, right? Knights save princesses." She sniffed back tears. "Just…just help me. Tell me how. Do I slay a dragon? Do I…do I…_what do I do_?"

Anna could still feel her sister breathing underneath her. Could still see the small puffs of cold air coming from her mouth. Underneath that thin layer of ice her sister's body still worked. Her heart still beat. If there was…

_Her heart._

_Maybe?_

"Do…do you need it back?" she whispered, one hand over her own heart, where a small part of Elsa's ice still rested, always protecting her.

_Briar Rose awoke from a kiss._

Anything was worth a shot. Anything at all. She leaned over Elsa's face.

"Please."

"Just come home."

Elsa's lips were cold against hers.

* * *

_She wandered the mountain, snow-blind and alone. Alone except for the voices._

Just lie down.

It will be easier that way.

So much less trouble.

_But she was looking for someone. Someone very precious to her._

"_ANNA!"_

_She had fought the others off, that had come near her with burning fire to pour over her and burial shrouds to cover her with, trying to finally dispose of the inconvenient little princess and her inconvenient little powers. She had ran, somehow, to where she knew she would be safe._

_The north mountain towered over her but somehow Elsa knew she was safe here. Jagged rocks that would skewer her enemies and huge glaciers that would crush and bury them before they could get to her. She would build a palace on the slopes and live there safe forever._

_Forever, if she could just find Anna and make sure she was safe too. She roared her sister's name into the white void around her and prayed to the mountain for help, but the goddess all around her was silent. She would find her on her own or not at all. It was a test._

"_ANNA!"_

_And then there it was. The sign she had been searching for days for. The light was sharp and burning, a red like ruby, and it pulsed with a warmth so strong Elsa could feel it even so far away. She placed her foot forward on the snow, but found her other foot wouldn't follow._

You'll drag her down too.

Just leave her.

Stay here.

"_NO!" Elsa screamed into the ground, which shattered underneath her. Icicles shot like spears up from the ground, skewering the shapes that had been haunting her all along. Men and women whose vague forms she almost recognised. But she didn't care, because Anna was so close, and the mountain was so cold. Even as she watched the shining red light dimmed just a little._

"_I'm coming Anna!"_

_The snow underneath gave way before her like the sea before Moses, or like an army before its commander. The closer Elsa got to the light the warmer it became, but somehow the snow around her remained intact, un-melting._

"_Anna!" She put her hands up and grasped the burning shape of her sister about the face. She wrapped her arms around her. "I'm here. You're safe now._

She's not safe around you.

Dangerous.

Sorceress.

"_SILENCE!" she screamed into the void, her power radiating out from her in every direction, an impenetrable wall surrounding her and her sister. She turned back. "I'm here now Anna," she whispered, holding the burning shape close. "I'll protect you."_

_She reached forward into the fire._

"_From everything."_

* * *

One tasted heat.

One tasted cold.

The ice creaked around the sisters as their eyes met. For a second both just stared in disbelief and hope that it wasn't another dream.

"Elsa."

"Anna."

"I'm here," they both said, at the same time, as the ice shattered all around them, a sound like a thousand cymbals crashing that sent shockwaves through the castle and was heard outside the town. The sisters stared into each other's eyes with joy as the world turned into a blue and white kaleidoscope around them.

Standing at the end of the corridor Gerda smiled as the ice melted, and prayed for the safety of her princesses.

Standing at the door and resisting the urge to glance in, Leif fingered the charm around his neck, and prayed in general.

Standing by him, Kristoff didn't pray. He just sat in the slowly-melting pool of water, and smiled.

At the outskirts of Arendelle's town, a long-haired woman in a new black cloak spared one final, sad glance towards the castle, before climbing into the packed carriage that would take her away.

When the king and queen rushed to their eldest's side they found Elsa sitting up in bed, her fever broken, stroking Anna's red hair as her younger sister slept beside her.

When Elsa looked up and smiled at them, her eyes glittered like blue diamonds.

"Oh, my _love,_" the queen gushed, and rushed to hug her daughters.

The king did too, but unlike his wife he still felt the cold.

Anna and Elsa held each other and each thought silently _I will never be taken away from you ever again._

And across the town the words rang out:

_There is a goddess in Arendelle._

* * *

"I'd hardly believe it if I hadn't seen it! Amazing! Wondrous!"

"Hmmm. Disturbing implications."

"Planning already, dear? Do I see us returning in a more…official manner…some day soon?"

"…No. I don't think so darling. I grow tired of these foreign adventures. We have a home we barely see, I think it might be time to settle down somewhat."

"Your father will be disappointed."

"Let him be, darling. Politics is a young man's game."

"His majesty will still demand action. A _presence_, at the very least."

"Then let him leave it to one of my younger brothers, there are enough of them. Stein maybe. Or Hans."

"I don't envy whichever comes back."

"Nor I, my dear." Prince Staas of the Southern Isles looked out over the deck of his ship, back towards Arendelle. The other dignitaries had already left. Some of them carrying the truth, others carrying what they thought their governments would believe. Many of them – especially two princes unfortunate enough to be a little too close to the action – quite heavily drunk. From the outside the country looked almost normal. But Staas knew better. He had been there at the final moments and seen the real truth.

Princess Elsa had stood over her sister and father, unafraid. All around her wolves had hung, skewered on spikes, as if a giant crown of ice had emerged from beneath them and its prongs had sought them out. Crown Princess Elsa had stood there, eyes blazing like twin blue fires, and Staas had looked and seen a queen.

He shivered.

But then, it _was_ quite chilly this far north.

"Nor I."

* * *

******The eighteenth birthday is over but we're not close to done.** There may be a short break in chapters due to real world stuff happening. Chapter notes up on cobraygordon dot tumblr dot com  


**Also if you enjoyed the little fic-concept a couple of weeks ago then follow my profile and watch out tomorrow for the first experimental chapter of _Queens_.**

**~Cobray**


	12. Interregnum

Elsa, are you awake?

Yes.

It's quiet.

Good.

Too much noise. Too many people. The sound of axes against the door in the night, as if they thought there was a way to break through the shield Elsa had placed around them without her hearing. She could focus and see past it to the men with picks, feel their outlines as gaps in her snowflakes, and long spikes would form on the outside of the door and they would back away. Once there was a shadow there that looked like Kristoff, and she left him alone.

_Elsa please._

The doors had been shut again.

_You can't go on like this._

The castle was quiet again.

_You need to let us help you both._

They had tried to take Anna away.

That wasn't the help either of them wanted.

She could look out the window and see fiery torches in the night, dotting the side of the mountain. Were they there for her? Tribute or riot? She couldn't tell, and so long as Anna was here and safe with her she didn't care.

Mother and father visited during the day and talked, and she always made sure that her hand was wrapped tightly around Anna's. Father's words were the betrayal of a locked oak door, closed and barred windows. The bars were new. Mother's words were only sadness and resignation.

_We just want to help, but we don't know how._

She didn't need any help. Blinded by fear he had never understood that. Just because it was fear out of love didn't make it any better. He tried to touch her arm and she made it burn him, just a little.

_We need to go away for a few weeks Elsa. We'll…we'll think. Promise me you'll think too?_

She promised.

_We'll see you soon._

Neither of them watched the boat leave.

* * *

Gone, the king's orders lost some of their potency, like a house decaying without regular maintenance. They snuck out of the rooms, children again, and went down to the kitchens to steal food and drink and talk with Kristoff about the stables and Sven. Anna would ask about how the horses were coming in, and Kristoff would smile and talk back and all three of them would ignore the pointed sword of Damocles hanging above their heads. Whatever happened when the king and queen returned would happen. For now they had each other, and for now that was enough.

Kristoff would touch Elsa's arm and smile to show he was unafraid, and Elsa would love him more for it. In all the castle he was the only one now.

Once he came to them wincing and with a bandage wrapped around his arm.

_They don't like me talking to you like this._

She asked who.

_Kristoff flicked a small little thing at her. Specked with blood where he had ripped it from the neck of the man. There's more of them now,_ he said. _They think I should be more respectful._ He fed Sven a carrot. _It's getting…a little weird, outside of the castle._

You're our best friend, Anna replied.

_Goddesses don't make friends with ice-boys._

* * *

She found the one who did it and he knelt, eyes wide like dinner-plates. She was angry, furious, and she came out of the castle hall at him with ice underfoot and snowflakes swirling in the air around her like the goddess he thought her to be. She was beautiful and terrible.

She had considered merely telling him to leave Kristoff alone, but when she found him, a guard she barely knew attacking one of _her friends_ she changed her mind. Instead she _commanded_ him. He agreed instantly without thought, a man almost double her weight and a foot higher almost cowering in the cold air that caressed him like a knife at his throat. She asked him how many others there were and he said:

_More every week._

She swept away from him, catching a flash of red and green from the corner of her eye, and she turned her head to see Anna sticking her head from a doorway, giddy. When she had vanished from the guard's sight they hugged giddily like two peasant girls who'd won the summer fair.

Others who had caught glimpses of her striding through the castle talked. The oldest hands would say the guard had deserved it, most of them laughed. A few were silent, just thinking. A couple wondered where they could get their hands on a small piece of iron, and a knife to etch it.

* * *

More and more she dreaded her parent's return at the same time as she desperately wished they were back, and it tore her apart. She missed her mother's soft voice and her father's hugs. She hated her father's commands and her mother's acceptance. When they were at home there was pressure and suspicion as she wondered how this whole mess would play out in the end, when they were gone there was a hole in Arendelle a princess couldn't fill.

_I wish they'd never come back._

_I wish they were back right now._

The two opposing thoughts sat in her heart, and fought, and festered.

* * *

_Your highness,_

Nothing moved.

_I have some very bad news._

Even the air was unmoving.

_Your parent's ship…_

Anna hugged her fiercely, the only thing in the room that wasn't frozen totally solid, from the dresses to the curtains right down to every mote of dust that lay in the room.

_Never made it…_

You still have me, Anna would whisper over and over into her catatonic sister's ear, as they both sat on a frozen bed as hard as rock. Neither noticed the cold around them. Kristoff tried to approach in full leathers and gasped before even reaching the doorknob.

_We are so sorry to say…_

We still have each other.

_Lost._

I'll never leave you Elsa.

_At._

Never.

_Sea._

I promise.

* * *

She remembered words spoken during the funeral. Some from others, some from herself, ones that had been given to her by heralds and worried relatives because she couldn't think of any of her own. Like trying to catch mist and put it on a page, she hadn't been able to find any that would work to turn her parents from a warm enveloping fog into the cold paper-locked phrases that would describe them. So she took the ones she had been offered, and said them, and pretended that it was good. Pretended that they were even here, under the massive carved and polished rocks they had erected.

It wasn't enough.

She wanted more.

She didn't know what she wanted.

_Well you have your wish now,_ one half of her heart told her at the same time the other one said _they are really never coming home_, and she split apart. She squeezed Anna's hand in her own as the rest of the gathered nobles and merchants around her just looked on solemnly. Her soul was bleeding out onto the ground. Why didn't anyone else notice? How could they just pretend?

No, it wasn't enough. Not just a grey and colourless rock and some words penned by an uncle she barely knew.

She asked to be left alone and no-one refused. The procession walked back down to their carriages that would take them back to the castle and only a few glanced back at the twin sisters, two black-clad ghosts standing atop the hill.

Be careful, Elsa said, and raised her hands and went to work, and poured out her soul on the ground. She didn't think or try to shape it, she just opened herself up and let her heart control her hands.

The few who had glanced back caught the morning light as the ice rose up, and gasped.

By the time she was done everyone was watching, but she didn't care. She looked at what she had made for her parents. Their real memorial. Ice so pure it was almost transparent surrounded her mother's headstone, rainbow light glinting from interior facets, all smooth curves and flowing shapes that twisted beautifully.

Her father's, glacial slabs that went on endless into themselves, deep blue like her eyes. Majestic and grand. Solid and strong as iron when it stood alone, but thinner, almost delicate sheets where they approached her mother.

Snowflakes danced around both, and they would forever. This was better.

It's beautiful, Anna said as they held hands and looked, and she reached up and kissed her sister on the cheek.

They turned away from the crystal ice to go home, and caught the assembled multitude below, staring up at them. Awe and suspicion and a dozen other emotions all mixed together. A few had fallen to their knees. Elsa looked down at them and the thought came into her head, the same way the thought _command him_ had when she had been lambasting Kristoff's attacker:

_Your subjects,_ it said, and both sides of her heart agreed.

Three years, Elsa thought to herself.

* * *

"Kai?"

"Yes, your highness?"

"Open the gates."

* * *

**Short one this week pals. Started university and real life is going to make this take if not a backseat then certainly not a priority. Gut feeling tells me this is an 'end of part one'-style thing. I think we're at about the halfway mark.**

**As usual thoughts and reviews and crits are always welcome.**

**As usual, chapter notes, thoughts and a couple of future spoilers on the tumblr, as well as some thoughts on _Queens._ cobraygordon dot tumblr dot com.**


	13. Hail the Woman

"Morning Anna," she said, brushing a lock of hair from her still-sleeping sister.

Anna shifted under the covers and opened a single bleary eye. Her mouth made a sound incomprehensible to human speech but Elsa spoke fluent Anna.

"Mmmmsawhati'msit?"

"Time to get up," Elsa said, and unceremoniously shoved Anna out of the bed.

They slept in the same bed now. For the last year since their parents had died. At first it had been for Elsa's sake, when she still had nightmares about still-loyal servants coming for Anna in the dead of night to carry her away forever. Then it had been for Anna, whose wounded heart had been so large it had threatened to consume her. Some nights it had seemed like only Elsa's hands wrapped around her had stopped her from cracking in two. Even months later when Elsa had stopped looking twice at every servant around her and Anna had stopped waking up crying in the dark they hadn't stopped. It had just seemed…more comforting, for both of them. Sometimes she might think about having a room to herself again, where she could get a good night's sleep without the occasional kick in the shins or strands of red hair tickling her nose. Then Elsa remembered that she'd never again sit in a chair with the warmth of her mother's lap beside her, listening to her read from books, and she would shake her head and put the thought away.

She didn't think Anna ever harboured such thoughts _at all._

There was a knock at the door. "In a second!" She swung her own legs off the bed as Anna clambered to her feet. "Come on already."

Anna rubbed sleep from her eyes and stretched indelicately. "Five more minutes."

"Not unless you want to spend them sleeping on the floor." Elsa sighed as Anna looked as if she would seriously consider it. Then she smiled, and suddenly Anna practically squeaked and leapt up as…

"That was mean!" her little sister said, wide-eyed, rubbing at her side where suddenly the ground had become _extremely_ chilly.

"Sorry, but you know we have things to do," Elsa laughed as she opened the door and let Gerda in.

The old woman took one look between the sisters, one frowning and rubbing at a frozen behind and the other standing over her and laughing. She sighed like a mother catching her daughters fighting. _Girls._ They would always be girls to her. She laid out twin dresses on the beds; red and green for one and…

"It's fine Gerda," Elsa said, gently taking the blue-and-white corseted dress from her head maid's hands. "Let people talk, it's no secret."

If Gerda had been her mother there would have been a dozen things she would have said. _I worry about it. I worry about the conclusions people draw when you wear those colours. I worry about how half the guards look at you in awe and the other half look at you in fear. _

"The young princes will be scurrying after you, your highness," she said instead.

Elsa smiled. "We don't need to worry about that just yet," she said, and felt her gut churn as she did so. So she did what she had done all year, whenever the subject had even approached being brought up; she ignored it. She moved behind the screen to dress.

Gerda coughed politely. "Your highness, will you be needing…" she trailed off before she could finish.

"No," Elsa said with a voice of authority. If she could have heard herself, she would have recognised her father's voice. "The gloves won't be required." She stepped out as Gerda handed her the blue scarf, and turned around to let Gerda begin lacing up the corset, which was why she was staring directly at the screen as Anna walked past her to change behind it, the light from the window casting a shadow. She couldn't help but look.

"Do we _really_ both have to do this?" Anna said, throwing her nightgown over the screen where her own maidservant grabbed it quickly.

"Yes," Elsa said. "Sorry. I know you don't like them." Anna's shadow moved to grab the dress the maid was offering. Elsa saw the maid's eyes glance up for a second to look at Anna, and felt a sudden burst of…something…when Anna's head came up to meet them. _It's nothing,_ she thought quickly.

"That's an understatement," Anna said. She was stretching around to get the dress on, and Elsa could see every contortion of her body as she fought to get it over her shoulders and she looked away before she could blush. Images came unbidden to her mind. Brown eyes and peach-coloured lips that swallowed up her own, and her hand resting against something soft and warm. "They're so…"

"Dull?" Elsa said, snapping herself back to her little sister's gripes.

"Unexciting!" Anna replied. "Everyone's so boring Elsa, they all want the same thing." She pivoted and walked out from behind the dresser and Elsa had to keep from gasping. The dress hadn't buttoned all the way up, and under the dress Anna's white undershirt could be clearly seen, and skin under that thin piece of cotton, already sticking to her in the summer heat. Too much skin.

"Anna!" Gerda exclaimed, in her shock forgetting titles or ranks.

Anna sighed in exasperation. "But these things are so stuffy and it's so _hot_ outside! Can't I do the rest up when we're at the party?"

"You may certainly _not_ run around the castle all day in such an indecent state! There are _young men_ all around this castle young lady! What would the guards _think?_"

"The guards will think 'oh my, it's certainly hot, I wish I could unbutton just a little bit like Princess Anna," Anna grumbled as Gerda roughly finished closing up the dress.

"Elsa, tell your sister!" Gerda said with a huff.

That Brown hair and those peach lips locked around her _sister's_, eyes closed and both of them sighing like…like nothing she had ever heard before. Moving against each other. Elsa blushed. She felt herself blush _everywhere_. It was getting worse. She tried to clear her head as she replied. "She's right Anna. This one is important."

Anna sighed. "They're all important these days."

"They _are_ all important Anna, especially now, since…since last year," Elsa said, as soothingly as she could, tucking in an errant string of her sister's hair. "There," she said, as the maidservant held up a mirror.

Elsa stood behind her sister and both of them looked. They were a study together. Elsa's dress hugged her sides closely, a black corset giving way to greens and purples in the skirt and waist. She had thought about snowflake patterns, about blues and whites, and had even idly dotted some ideas in her notebooks. But in the end that would have been going just a little too far, what with…what with everything these days. In the end she had taken Arendelle's traditional colours, gathered her hair up onto her head, and anointed the whole thing with her tiara. Somewhere in the castle vault there was another one, bigger. But she wouldn't put that one on for two more years yet.

Anna's dress was in comparison was much simpler and more traditional. More folds, more expansive, hanging from her shoulders and a gorgeous green colour. Her hair was piled up on her head in a similar way. No tiara though, not yet. It seemed unfair.

_It's fine._

_It isn't fine._

_No, it _really is fine_ Elsa. You're the heir, not me. You get the gold._

_You deserve it just as much._

_Don't rock the boat yet._

But she _wanted_ to rock the boat. She wanted to wear the whites and the blues and dress herself in ice and snowflakes as a part of her whispered _you're free now_ at her. She knew all that though. The gates had been opened after her parent's funeral, and she had commanded that they stay so. She and Anna had went out into the towns, reassured the country. It had absolutely liberating, for both of them. It had felt so good that for a few days out on the roads they had managed to forget the tragedy that had set them free. It had been enough, and when they had returned to the castle Elsa had been filled with something elating. She could afford to wait a little while longer to truly be herself.

_I'm myself,_ Elsa thought. She took a deep breath, and smiled at herself in the mirror, and ignored the little voice at the bottom of her stomach that was insistently calling her a liar.

* * *

The throne-room was gorgeous at night. Just like at her eighteenth birthday the candles on the walls and chandeliers above lit the huge room beautifully, bathing the entire room in a warm glow that was bright enough to see by but not bright enough to blind. Elsa watched from the small raised area where the thrones were located, and looked down at her guests. She smiled.

They mingled and talked happily, servants circulating like a well-oiled machine to deliver the food and drink. Men in black-and-white tuxedos or ornate military uniforms gave thousand-candle smiles to the women dressed in amazing gowns, and everywhere she went Elsa and Anna were complimented on the outstanding reception that Arendelle was giving them. A couple of the bolder princes complimented the princesses themselves. None of them kissed Elsa's hand though.

Only a small, ever so tiny, really barely even there, undercurrent ran through the room that kept everyone from forgetting what had happened last year. Everything was different now, and nobody knew what to do about it. Everything was the same, and nobody knew what to do about _that_ either.

Those close enough, rich enough or entangled enough to have relations with Arendelle had split into two camps. Half had done what the upper-classes of all ages and generations had done when presented with something so totally outside of their experience as to be impossible; they had simply ignored it, and carried on like everything was normal. Condolences were given and her condition wasn't even hinted at.

_There's still money in Arendelle. Not our problem._

The other half had reacted…differently. Kristoff had heard the stories coming in on merchant ships. The news was leaking from the top-down. From the people who had been at the funeral to the rest of the royal courts, to the noblemen and merchant classes that made a country function, from them down to the masses.

_There is a witch-queen in Arendelle. Unforgivable._

Elsa had known that none of the people in the second group were going to be here tonight. She had no idea how many people that would be though. She had worried it would be herself and Anna in an empty throne-room, leaving the food for the servants. She needn't have.

"Your grace, it's a pleasure to see you again," Elsa said, enthusiastically as she could, as the man and his entourage approached her.

"It's always a pleasure to visit the capital of our oldest trading partner," Duke Weselton said, at the front of the pack of around a dozen men, and two women. She could put names to all of them, and inside felt relief at who they represented. A couple of the bigger countries were missing representatives at the banquet, but Arendelle wasn't a pariah quite yet. The old man reached out a hand, and she placed her own in it, and he brought it to his lips and gave it a rough, papery kiss. To the man's credit he didn't even flinch at her ever-so-slightly chilly skin.

_Dry and sandy. No competition. Not like her. Not like-_

_Not now._

"-such unfortunate circumstances, but anyone here can see you're rising to the challenge however, your majesty," Weselton went on, oblivious to his audience's momentary distraction.

"Just your highness for now, Duke," Elsa replied, smiling.

He slapped his head like he had remembered where he'd left something. "Ah, of course! Forgive me!" He did something with his eyebrows. "I certainly look forward to the banquet for _that_!"

_Oh, he's trying to wiggle them. At his age?_ "Your name will be the first on the guest list your grace."

"And speaking of firsts I wonder if we could maybe talk later? Discuss a few common points of national interest?" He did the wiggle thing again.

Any other day she would have sighed quietly and made her excuses, but Elsa had been waiting for it and jumped instantly. "I'd be happy to talk about trade and more tomorrow Duke," she said. "If your ship is still around that is."

Duke Weselton actually seemed taken aback. His mouth moved up and down for a few seconds in total shock before he could recover. "Ah well I…ah of course…Of…well. _Certainly!_ Yes, certainly your majes- your highness! It would be a delight! Yes, we'll…I'll look forward to it!"

Elsa watched as the man strode away happily.

"That was a change. Usually he's sneakier than that. I think you surprised him."

Elsa almost jumped. "Anna! Don't creep up on me like that."

Anna popped a small roll into her mouth. "Mmf moo hhur-"

"Finish your food."

"Mmmf! Ahem. Are you sure about him?"

Elsa shrugged. "We need friends right now." She looked after the retreating Duke and sighed. "It's hard." She felt something warm encase her un-gloved – un-gloved now and forever – hand and looked down to see Anna's hand encasing hers.

"You'll always have me," she whispered, the same way she had when Elsa had been curled up, catatonic, in a frozen room a year ago.

She smiled, her heart filled with love, driving out the worry and the fear and-

_-and the other-_

-and the rest from her heart. "I know," she said, smiling at Anna the way she hadn't at Weselton. "We'll always have each other."

Anna smiled radiantly. "I know." The smile turned into a grin. "Now come on, have some fun. There's a chocolate fountain and everything."

Elsa frowned. "I don't recall asking for one."

"I added it to the servant's list of supplies for tonight, when no-one was looking."

"Anna!"

"I can forge your handwriting quite well you know."

"_Anna!"_

Anna practically skipped away through the forest of guests, laughing as she went, eyes following the gorgeous green-glad princess as she threaded her way through the banquet.

* * *

The night wore on, and on, and Elsa's patience and energy was whittled away little by little. So much so that she began to worry, and not just that she would say the wrong thing or insult the wrong person. She felt sleepy and her eyes felt heavy, not fully under her control. She worried she would be caught looking at the wrong person in the wrong way.

In the year since her parents had died – Elsa didn't use phrases like 'lost' or 'passed on' anymore, she had forced herself past denial – she had dove back into her education in a way that had almost scared Anna and her old tutors. During the evenings and nights she had still been Elsa, still laughed and played with Anna, but in the daytime she made herself become a machine that drank knowledge. Every piece of paper the king had looked at in his last years, every report, file and book that had been kept back from her, she devoured, and studied, and learned. This night was the first test, for herself. Now this…this other _thing_ she had tried so hard to bury inside herself was threatening it all.

"Your majesty."

"Just highness for now," she replied, turning to see- "Prince Staas?"

She realised her mistake immediately. Prince Staas had been old. Well, old_er_. The man in front of her shared some of his features but was far, far younger. The same shock of light brown hair, the same high cheeks and strong chin, the same brown eyes. But where Staas had been cold and with all the emotion and warmth of a block of ice, the young man in front of her had an easy smile. He was dressed in off-white just like his older clone, another of the quasi-military outfits men seemed to love so much. Everything about him screamed young and confident.

"Unfortunately my older and wiser brother couldn't make it back for the occasion," the man said, and bowed deeply. "Allow me. Prince Hans, of the Southern Isles." Elsa didn't even realise she had offered her hand until he kissed it. Yes, definitely warmer than Prince Staas had been.

"It's a pleasure your highness, I remember your brother fondly," she said. _Although I have no idea if he'd remember me the same way._

Prince Hans kept smiling. "He owes you his life, and asked me to apologise he couldn't be here in person," he said, and took a drink from his free hand.

"…Oh?" Elsa said, momentarily lost for words. That had been the closest anyone had come all night to even mentioning her powers.

"You made quite the impression on him. In many ways," he said, his eyes never leaving her face. It was…a little disconcerting. "The Southern Isles will always remember the service you gave us."

She felt confident enough to give a little smile of her own. "And will the Southern Isles be requesting a service in return?" she asked.

Hans laughed quietly. "Maybe. But that's for another day. Tonight I'm just glad to have been invited. Arendelle is an extraordinary place, with extraordinary people." He raised his glass. "Yourself most definitely included, your highness. While I am required to say that I hope I can demonstrate that the Southern Isles values and keeps the friendship of Arendelle, I hope that her _people_ can come to a similar relationship."

In spite of such breath-taking forwardness Elsa felt herself still smiling, and decided that she was prepared to like Hans of the Southern Isles. Her reminded her a little of Kristoff. He wasn't afraid. "I'm sure we can come to some arrangement."

"I couldn't ask for more," Prince Hans said, and bowed, and turned away. She watched him retreat, and catch the eye and smile at the ambassador from Norway. As Elsa watched a woman in a long and severe red dress came up and put a hand on his shoulder, and whispered something in his ear. She bent closer to whisper something in his ear, and-

Elsa coughed, and dragged her eyes away. It felt hot in the throne-room, in spite of the open windows letting moonlight and cold air spill in. Clearly she'd had too much to drink.

"Oh my, that was smooth," Anna said, appearing at her side as if from nowhere, watching the prince with a sly grin on her face. "No wonder that girl's hanging off'f him."

"Hello Anna. Meet Prince Hans, of the Southern Isles."

"Two out of thirteen. Think we'll collect the whole set some day?"

"Haven't you had enough of that?" Elsa said pointedly, as Anna sipped her glass.

The red-haired princess just smiled back radiantly. "No. Look, half the room is tipsy already, they're practically eating from your palm." A heartbeat, then… "I always knew you'd be the perfect queen," she said.

"I'm not queen yet," Elsa replied, the uncertainty missing from her conversation with Prince Hans suddenly back and at centre-stage.

"A technicality," Anna said breezily, and took another sip.

"Just stay awake for the toast, alright?" Elsa teased her little sister.

"Sorry," Anna said quietly.

"Are you alright?" Elsa asked, just as quietly.

"Just…remembering last year," Anna said, a finger moving around the tip of her wine-glass.

_Anna lost more than me that day,_ Elsa remembered with a jolt, and suddenly felt bad. She reached for her sister's hand as it traced around the crystal rim of the glass. "I'm sorry," she said. "If I had-"

"Not your fault Elsa," Anna said quickly, intensely, slapping the idea down before it could stay in Elsa's head. "_Never_ your fault." She stretched, and planted a small kiss on Elsa's cheek. Like always when their skin touched Anna felt like fire against her. "Make your toast. I'm right here."

"I know," Elsa said, and turned, and climbed the small dais to the throne. She wouldn't sit there yet, but it was there. Just waiting for her. Two years. She held up the glass, and smiled. "To your health, and to your friendship!"

The reply from the assembled multitudes was loud, hearty, and more than a little drunk.

"To her highness, Elsa of Arendelle!" Weselton shouted, enthused by the promises of the trade he loved so much. Exactly as she had hoped he would be.

"To her majesty, Elsa of Arendelle!" a white-suited figure shouted, and Hans smiled as their eyes met.

"_TO HER HIGHNESS!"_ came the roar from the others as they toasted.

Elsa caught a glimpse of red hair among the crowd and looked to find Anna standing by a serving girl, her own glass raised, and a smile plastered over her face. She mouthed words, and it only took Elsa a second to translate them:

_Proud of you._

The wine felt sweet and hot going down her throat, and as she drank it she looked out over the throne-room, all of them staring at her, and she tried not to look at the green-eyed woman standing next to Prince Hans. Instead she lifted her glass, and gave one final toast. "To Arendelle!" she cried, and the cry came back:

"_TO ARENDELLE!"_

* * *

The candles were extinguished. The guests were thanked flattered and given gifts (and some asked to keep their ships in the harbour 'till morning). Finally it had been Elsa and Anna alone in the throne-room, with Elsa standing there silently, almost holding her breath, as if the slightest disturbance would shatter the illusion it felt like the night had been.

_It was magnificent,_ Gerda had said, with a tear in her eye, and Kai agreed. _They would be so proud._

_You were so great! _Anna had said, still more than a little tipsy, and had hugged her sister fiercely.

The final hours of the day had gone by in a whirlwind, and before Elsa could think straight she was out of the stuffy dress, and into a nightgown, and in bed. As if the entire night had been a dream. Alone with her own thoughts.

Which was the whole problem, really.

It had started in the last month or so. No, if she wanted to be honest though it had been building for _years_ now, it felt like. She had ignored it at first, dismissed it as a fever that wouldn't quite vanish, or tiredness, or a dozen other things that she could put out of her mind so she could focus on picking up the reigns that her father had left for her.

It was getting worse. She had tried to think responsibly, talking with those 'prospects' who had arrived, smiled and made nice. But she simply couldn't focus. Maids in severe black and white formal wear had offered food and drinks, women in beautiful gowns had hung from the arms of their escorts as they had talked with Elsa, and she had felt her eyes dragged away to them and _she had wondered._

Elsa shivered in her nightgown, and not from the cold. All the education and training and lessons, and now she lay in her bed, arms wrapped around herself, and she simply didn't know what to do. Her lips tingled, she felt sweaty under the silk nightgown and cotton sheets. She had taken the side of the bed that looked out over the window, Anna dozing on the other, and Elsa stared out into the moonlight overlooking the city as she thought.

One year ago. Two kisses. The man, honest as anyone who had ever lived, strong and tall and blonde. If Kristoff had been born a prince he would have been the kind stories were made of. The…the _other_. Just a common servant, a _milk-maid,_ could the cliché be any worse? Insolent and disloyal. The kind of maid that _other_ kinds of stories were told about, and Elsa had seen it was true.

But she had kissed the man and felt barely anything, and kissed the woman and if she thought hard enough she imagined she could still feel it.

And it was just too much. She couldn't keep it inside.

God, it was a choice between two kinds of torture. Humiliation and ignorance.

Ignorance lost. She'd risk humiliation.

"…Anna?" Elsa asked, and just saying that one word felt ten times harder than standing at the head of the ballroom only hours ago.

"Hmmm?" came a sleepy reply.

"Do…do you miss Eva?"

There was no reply, and Elsa stared at Anna's back for so long that for a second she thought her little sister might have fallen asleep before she heard the question. Or was ignoring her. Finally though, Anna's form shifted under the covers as she twisted around, and Anna's green eyes were staring into her own, and Elsa could see the pain there. "Sometimes," Anna whispered, and the pain was in there too. "When I think back."

Elsa's lips felt dry. She ran her tongue across them and felt them tingle. "Tell me about her," Elsa asked. "Were you…was it…"

"Love?" Anna whispered, the word Elsa couldn't quite bring herself to say. "No, she…both of us knew it wasn't. Maybe if…maybe if I hadn't been a princess."

_But then you wouldn't have been my sister,_ Elsa thought, as her sister went on staring into her eyes as she talked, one hand between her and the pillow and the other resting on her side.

"But she made me feel happy, and alive." Anna said, her memory like a picture-book in fast-forward, each image just a little different, read so fast they were almost moving.

She would tip-toe from the secret passage to Eva's room, sometimes drenched in sweat, sometimes her leathers spattered with blood, and Eva would always be waiting on the other side of the door with a wash-basin and a clean nightgown, and a piece of cheese or hunk of bread to make a good excuse if Anna was caught sneaking around at the small hours of the morning. She would smile and ask how Anna's night had been, and never complain or treat her like an aberration or monster for what she enjoyed so much. Anna had wondered if this was what normal people felt like, coming home to a family after a long day at work. It felt so good.

Anna would talk breathlessly as Eva gently wiped away the sweat or blood, Anna speaking at a thousand miles an hour, coming down from adrenaline and working up her courage all at the same time, until finally Eva would lean forward and say _let me wipe your forehead _or _let me fix your ponytail,_ and Anna's will would break and they would be on each other.

_This is wrong, no, we shouldn't, I can't,_ she had whispered at first, over and over as Eva's hands had crawled over her buttons and her breath flowed softly over her face. Whatever shirt she had worn to sneak from the castle had already been unbuttoned past her navel by Eva's questing hands, and the maid's warm breath across her chest had done things to her she hadn't been able to describe. Indescribable-ness had been a running theme. After the first two months and four meetings though she had stopped trying to stop herself, and replaced the hesitation with confidence, and the whispers of _no_ with _yes._

_Trust me,_ Eva would say every time, and her tongue would be Anna's mouth, and Anna's words would disappear back down her throat to make room for that amazing feeling twisting inside her. Hands brushed and twitched at Anna's belly and her shirt had been wide open, and then Eva – or maybe Anna herself, it was impossible to tell – had pushed them together until Anna could feel Eva's chest pressed against her own. She would moan and strip Eva in return and bury her hands and face in the older woman's large breasts, feeling…

"Wanted," Anna whispered in the present, her mind in the past, as Elsa listened in total captivation to her sister unrolling the memories she had kept secret from everyone. "She made me feel wanted. She just…she didn't want me because I was Anna _of Arendelle."_ Without thinking it the hand that had rested against her side was running an idle finger up and down her thighs, as if recalling a place Eva had once touched. "She just wanted me for _me_."

_I can't,_ Anna had whispered again and again, night after night as Eva's hands or tongue would move inside her, bringing Anna closer and closer but never sending her over the edge she knew was there but couldn't find. Pure pleasure would flow through like lava, singing every inch of her, but too soon turned to frustrated pain, and Eva would have to stop and whisper _I'm sorry_ in a voice thick with pleasure and lust that would just make Anna grit her teeth at the fire building inside her with no place to go. Anna would twist them around and take out that hot frustration on the skin beneath her until Eva was panting and twitching like an animal. She knew every inch of that skin, knew where to touch to make her blush and purr, or turn red and grit her teeth, or arch her back and gasp for air. Anna would straddle Eva, her hands playing out a symphony on the woman's body, herself still an unfulfilled pot of fire driving her onwards where her slick sex rubbed against Eva's sweat-covered belly, and the milkmaid would soak the sheets underneath them both as she came. As she worked the hot and wet flesh sometimes green eyes would meet brown and Anna would marvel that she could make another person look at her like that.

Afterwards, Eva spent and exhausted and Anna still at her limit as always, unable to make that final leap, the milkmaid would lay underneath the princess and gently shift a strand of hair plastered to Anna's cheek. _A queen,_ she would whisper thickly, cupping Anna's cheek with her hand. Anna would reach a hand down, deep inside Eva to make her buck and shout one last time, and she would take a last kiss from her gasping mouth before she stood on shaky feet to leave.

Elsa watched Anna as she remembered the nights, watched the way she shifted in her nightgown under the covers. The way she licked her lips. She wanted to look away but at the same time wanted to keep watching, wondering what the other woman was thinking. Wondered what had happened to make Anna move like that. "Anna…"

"I know," Anna said, and refused to meet Elsa's eyes, settling back down in the bed they shared. "I know one day it'll be someone like Kristoff, or Staas or one of his brothers, or someone I've never even met. It's just the way things are, right?"

"I would never-"

Anna's head snapped back up. "But out there on the mountain I really felt like myself. I really felt like that was who I was meant to be. I…I'm such a terrible princess. I enjoy it all so much. I enjoy sneaking out, and the hunt, and…and I feel like I've really accomplished something if I'm saving those people out there. _Our_ people."

"You have," Elsa said quietly, "and they love you for it." But Anna didn't hear, lost in her confession.

"I don't just want to sit around and wait for some storybook knight to come and claim me. I want to _be_ them, and rescue my own beautiful princess, and…" she said, looking into her sister's blue eyes with a heartbreak so intense Elsa could feel it across the few inches that separated them. "I like women Elsa. I don't care what that makes me, I don't care what other people think. I want my own life. I'll never be like _them._" Anna didn't have to say who Elsa was talking about, because that night there had been maybe half a dozen of _them_ walking through the throne-room. Quiet, ephemeral things, barely there. They smiled and curtsied when told and maybe said a couple of words when introduced by their husbands, but otherwise they were nobody. Not important. Whatever hopes or dreams they had had been taken and consumed by their spouses, maybe voluntarily, maybe not, but gone all the same.

Before she could hesitate or stop herself, Elsa grabbed Anna by the shoulders and brought the two of them together until they were looking past each other, their cheeks touching. Elsa felt Anna's heat blow through her like a furnace, purifying, burning away the smiley black tar of doubt and self-hatred in her mind. Looking at her little sister crying in her arms, Elsa would have admitted to anything. Having to say something true didn't even phase her for a second.

"Listen, Anna," Elsa whispered into her little sister's ear, running a hand down her red hair. "I'll never ask you to do that. Never. If you don't want any princes then there won't be any. I can-"

"You can't promise that."

"I can, because I…" _One sentence. Do it for Anna. How can you leave her being so miserable, you horrible sister._

"Because I feel the same way," Elsa said, and it felt like all the world's weight being lifted from her shoulders.

Anna blinked, whatever word had been on the tip of her tongue sudden lost, as she just stared at Elsa. Finally she spoke. "Are…what?"

So she told her and at the end of the explanation she took one Anna's free hand in both of hers and said: "You're not a monster. Or if you are we're both monsters, and I don't care."

But Anna wasn't entirely convinced. "There's still…tradition is still…you still can't stop them from-"

Elsa threw the covers back from them both and got onto her knees over Anna. "I _can,_" she said loudly. "If you don't want to marry a prince you'll never have to. If you want to be a knight I can make it happen. I'm the queen in two years. Who's going to stop me?" She looked down and saw Anna laying there, nightgown clinging to her from the sweat, and resisted the urge to look away. "Kneel."

Anna giggled, but she did so as Elsa stood, feet planted apart on the soft feather mattress. "Yes, your majesty."

Elsa breathed out, utterly confident, and just like it had been waiting for her command the frost was there. Elsa held her hands into the air like a conductor and the snowflakes whirled and twisted and flowed together between them, and after only a few seconds it was there, and perfect.

Elsa gripped the sword with her left hand and held it tip-down onto the bed. "Kiss the blade," she said, imperiously.

Anna did so, and Elsa imagined steam rose from where Anna's lips touched it.

"Anna of Arendelle, be my knight, forever and always."

"Forever and always," Anna whispered back. She looked up at her sister, standing above her in only a nightgown, the light from the moon streaming in from behind her and outlining every inch of her body through the thin silk. She was so beautiful it ached.

"Here," Elsa said, and reversed the sword and handed it to Anna. Even though she gripped it by the blade it didn't so much as scratch her. "It's yours."

"It's your birthday, not mine."

"Whatever, then you're not getting a birthday present in summer," Elsa said.

"Meanie," Anna said with a laugh, and took the sword. It was cold in her hands but not especially so.

"Nobody will take this one from you," Elsa whispered, as she dropped back down to Anna's level, and embraced her sister.

_I won't allow it._

* * *

**And so part two begins. Familiar faces. Chapter notes up on tumblr as usual.  
**

**Queens #2 ETA one hour or so.**


	14. First Blood

**One hundred followers, god damn.**

**I'll think of something nice to do when I recover from the shock. **

**For a start, just...thank you. :) Here's this week's update a day early to celebrate.  
**

* * *

If there was only one thing that she loved from these trips, it was this.

"Y'hrrness," the small blonde girl said, before scooting backwards and gripping her mother's hand.

Elsa smiled and bent down precariously to be closer to the little girl, who looked like she was trying to hide behind her mother's skirts. The middle-aged mother in question was blushing furiously in embarrassment as her child hide from her ruler.

"Hello there," Elsa said, as gently as she could.

"I'm so sorry y'highness," the woman said, her voice sounding like it was one bad knock away from stuttering. "She…she's just a little shy."

"Quite understandable," Elsa said, as the child continued to hide from her.

They had arrived at the village before dark, although the closer they had gotten the less the night had mattered, as dozens of torches illuminated every inch of the road. It was one of the larger villages, situated nearer to the open sea than the main town. It had a small trading presence, giving smaller ships a chance to rest up before navigating the fjord to Arendelle-proper, and so actually had the wealth for paved roads and gas-lanterns, as well as to maintain comfortably a population of a couple of hundred people. It felt like every single one of those two hundred had turned out to meet their queen. There had even been some children, despite the late hour. She had ridden across the cobblestones in a blue dress with a fur-lined cloak (fur that Anna had fetched, although only Elsa and Kristoff knew that), and the slack jaws and wide eyes of the village had given her the confidence she needed.

_Headsman,_ Elsa had said from atop her horse, desperately hoping she didn't fall from it as the beast came to a rough stop. She was still uncomfortable on horse-backs and she swore the things knew it and made life difficult for her. She hadn't fallen yet but it was probably just a matter of time. Anna had wondered if Elsa wouldn't prefer a carriage like their parents had done, but Elsa had insisted. Anna had pushed it – knowing exactly how nervous a rider Elsa was – and her sister had told her:

_I have to look strong._

And that had been the end of that discussion. Anna had settled for being within an arms-length of her whenever they rode into a new village, and was still nervous.

The village headsman, a balding old man with enough stress lines for two people and a belly for three, had whipped his embroidered hat off and said _your highness_ like the others, and gestured behind him to the large stone building, the only one in the place with a second story and a slate roof. It looked like it had been converted from a granary or a storehouse, but it was still the biggest place around. _It would be an honour._ He had fidgeted nervously as he had talked, not meeting her eyes, and Elsa had just smiled and nodded. She had dismounted and taken the man by the hand before her guard could stop her

_The hospitality of you and your village is a credit to Arendelle,_ she had said, and just like that their hearts had been hers.

The townhouse was closer to the castle servant's quarters than the castle itself, and Anna had needled Elsa a little bit about having to rough it for the night, but it was warm and dry and out of the snow, and that was what mattered. Elsa had been asleep a second after her head had hit the pillow. When she awoke the next morning she had found herself with her back up against the wooden wall, the wall that separated her room from Anna's.

The day after had been…exhilarating. The sunlight had glinted from the bunting and ribbons hung between buildings and scattered throughout the village. She had walked the docks and talked about trade with the headsman and fishers there as sailors on the docked ship had gawked down at them. A woman in the small market had offered her an apple and nearly fainted when Elsa ignored her guard and took it directly from her hand and bit into it right there.

She didn't really know what she had expected. They had passed through three smaller villages to get here. One had been full of old wood-cutters and treated a visit by the monarch as just another day in their lives. They had offered the use of their single long barracks for her and her guard and she had taken it gratefully. One had been awe-struck bordering on worshipful, and Elsa had spotted the small glint of the runestones around their necks. They had stayed in the home of the wealthiest man, a farmer with a small herd of cows and a barn and little else, and he had knelt when she approached him.

The third had been the smallest, with a huge wooden cross erected in the middle of the small ring of houses. The crossbeams covered in snow, it had loomed over them as they had passed through. Nobody had come to greet them, and as Anna had ridden next to Elsa she had kept her hand on her sword. They hadn't stayed the night.

If a small frightened child was the worst that was going to happen today, she could live with that.

"What's your name?"

"…Agathe."

"That's a pretty name Agathe. Mine's Elsa, and this is my sister Anna."

Agathe's eyes swivelled as Elsa gestured behind her, and locked onto the green and red shape of Anna, who smiled and waved. "Don't be scared! We're _really_ nice!"

"You have a sword though," the girl said, pronouncing it with the 'w'.

The day after Elsa had made it for her Anna had woke at dawn. She'd dragged Elsa with her and the two of them had gone down to the castle blacksmith. After the bowing and the titles had been done with Anna had presented him with the naked, hilt-less blade and he had gasped at and asked; _what do you want to do with it?_

_Make this into a real sword,_ Anna had replied, and handed it over. The blacksmith had been wearing his working gloves when he did so, heavy tanned leather and metal studs, and that was what had saved his fingers. He had held it up to the light and watched as the early dawn had streamed through the perfect crystal, making the long thin icicle glow an incredible blue.

_It'll break! _he had said, entranced.

_It won't,_ Elsa had replied, certain.

_Why didn't it cut me?_ Anna had asked, as the man had set – extremely carefully – to work.

_I would never make anything that could hurt you_.

The blacksmith worked all morning and the two sisters had watched as the grizzled and scarred old man had taken the best metal and leather from his stocks and made Elsa's magical ice into a real sword, so sharp it could cut anything and so beautiful that when Anna held it up in the afternoon light it glowed. He had done a beautiful job. The leather was smooth and flawless in her hand and the silver of the pommel and cross-guards were polished to a mirror-sheen. At the tip of the hilt before the metal gave way to the ice, a beautiful six-pointed snowflake was inscribed, at Elsa's insistent suggestion.

_Sword like that needs a name,_ the old man had said, for a second forgetting that he was addressing the queen-to-be and the princess. He watched as Anna gave it a couple of experimental swings through the air, the light running through the blade leaving a soft blue glow in the air where it passed.

Anna shifted her hips a little bit, so that the nameless sword was behind her. "Yes, but I only use it against really scary things, like monsters," she said, mock-whispering.

"Like a knight!"

Elsa watched as Anna's eyes seemed to light up. "That's right, a brave knight, looking after little princesses, like you!"

"God bless you both, your highnesses," the mother said as she and the little girl walked away.

Elsa kept her eyes on Anna, who was watching the pair as they went away, that smile still on her face and the light still in her eyes. "See?" she said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Other people see it too."

"Yeah," Anna said, and laughed softly, barely loud enough for Elsa to hear her. "Yeah." She turned to the captain of their escort. "How many more?"

Leif, still uncomfortable in his new clothes and his new sword still clinking against his belt when he moved, looked down at the small piece of paper in his hand. Elsa watched as the man nervously resisted the urge to tug at the small runestone around his neck. She still wasn't sure how comfortable she was with the whole idea, but she had accepted it at least, a few months after the funeral. When the planning had been finished, Leif had been among the first to volunteer for the escort duty as Elsa made her first royal visit to the surrounding villages and towns.

_They love you,_ _why so surprised? _Anna had said. _Trust me Elsa, you're easy to love._

"Three villages on the return trip your highness," Leif said.

Elsa heard Anna sigh. Not because she was tired and wanted to get home, but because she didn't want it to end. When the idea had come up, Anna had been the first to second it, the first to think of the many advantages to it, the first to really start planning for it. Elsa wanted to finally walk her own country after a life inside the same tall stone walls and was definitely in favour, but Anna was practically drunk on the idea of it.

_Think of everything we'll see!_ she had said, practically dancing through the portrait room, falling into the long couch underneath the picture of Joan of Arc. She slipped into position easily, her outline carved into the once-pristine cushions by a decade of lazing on the thing. _I wonder who we'll meet?_ Elsa had shared her enthusiasm, but not nearly so _fanatically_ as her sister.

"Six villages is more than enough Anna," Elsa said as they slowly walked the small dock-front.

"I wanted to visit them all."

"Well, do it on your own," Elsa said, poking Anna in the side and making her sister a very un-princess-like yelp. She pictured the scene in her mind: A lone figure on a horse approaching a lonely village through a blizzard, shrouded in a dark green cloak with red hair and with a shining blade at her side. Come to save the village from…whatever.

"Well maybe I would _your highness,_ but someone has to look after you!" Anna said, then the smile changed to mortification and she turned to Leif right behind her. "Not that you aren't doing a great job!"

"Her highness is blessed to have a sister like you," the young guard replied.

Everything was perfect. The sun beat down on the princesses as they walked the town, everywhere they went people actually happy to see them. A gentle wind blew across the water, making her braid wave in the breeze. Elsa had expected that she would need time to work up her nerve for what she had planned, but she simply didn't. Every time the thought of failure tried to enter her head all she needed to do was turn and glance at Anna. Happy Anna. Anna who laughed and talked with the townspeople with the nerve to step up to her. Anna who brought out her sword – just a little – and let the little boys and even some of the girls touch the side of the blade. She entranced them and they loved her. She looked out at the sea, the calm waters barely moving. It was perfect. Like the stars had aligned to make her inaugural trip a blessed one.

_You need something to awe them that they can understand,_ she had been told before the trip had begun, and instantly she had known what to do. She turned to the sea, and reached out with her power, and then turned back to the townsfolk. She didn't need to check whether it had worked. She felt strong, confidant. "A gift," she said with a smile. "For your hospitality."

The children were the first ones onto the perfect frozen surface of the water. A couple of their parents looked scared, tried to grab them before they could do it, but the children didn't care. They saw real magic just like in the storybooks, and they were away before any adult could stop them.

Anna joined them, carefully sliding out to the farthest edge where Elsa's power made the sea slope up and freeze, a wall to separate the sea from its now-frozen cousin. "See, it's perfectly safe!" she said, and Elsa prayed she didn't slip and break something. Her face maybe.

_See, father?_ Elsa thought, as more of the men and women of the town streamed past her and the guard, every one of them bowing or curtsying or touching her hand on one knee as they did so. When the last of them had gone past and the rest were watching from the cobblestone dock, Elsa turned to look and see her people just…having fun.

She only wished he could have been alive to see it. Elsa laughed and brushed a stray strand of platinum-blonde hair from her face.

_Perfect._

"Elsa?"

She turned to Anna, to tease her about being tired already, and caught her staring, the smile nowhere on her face. "What?" she asked, looking into her sister's eyes. "Are you okay? Is something wrong?"

But Anna's look wasn't worried. More puzzled.

* * *

"_Was_ it always that white?"

Elsa examined her braid, _shoo_ing Anna's worried hands away as they tried to examine it. "I don't think so," Elsa said, aware that the change was new, but somehow not especially worried about it. She stared at herself in the mirror, the largest in the townhouse they were occupying. Elsa had sent Leif and the others to guard the outside, and it was just her and Anna as the sun began to set.

The frozen lake had been a huge success. Elsa felt jubilant. _Maybe we could do something similar back at the castle. Freeze a portion of the lake maybe? Or just the courtyard?_ Something to think about, certainly. She felt like there was nothing she couldn't do.

Something as insignificant as her hair barely registered as important. She looked at herself in the mirror. Yes, it was a little lighter than it had been. Was it her imagination or…

Anna jumped from the bed and came so close to Elsa she was almost bumping against the surface of the glass. "And your _skin!"_ Anna twisted herself until she was stood behind Elsa, the mirror reflecting both of them. She had always been a little pale, especially when you stood her next to Anna, all red hair and freckles, but she could tell her sister was right. Like someone had covered her in a light dusting of chalk.

"It doesn't look _bad,_" Anna said quickly. "I'm just worried."

"It's just been a long day," Elsa said, shrugging her off and turning away from the mirror. "It's been a long _week_, and we didn't sleep at the last village remember?"

"The creepy empty village."

"The creepy empty village, yes," Elsa said.

"Creepy empty ghost village," Anna whispered, holding up her hands and hanging her mouth open like a ghoul.

"Well, that's what my knight is for" Elsa said, climbing on top of the bed. "You should get some sleep too Anna. Showing off for those kids must have been tiring too." She smiled as Anna opened the door and blew a raspberry at her. "Goodnight Anna.

"Goodnight sis."

* * *

It wasn't morning when she woke.

"Elsa, wake up."

She heard Anna's voice through a fog of sleep and only half-banished exhaustion, and cracked open an eye to see a blurry flash of white and red reaching down and shaking her awake. "Mmmanna?" She rubbed at her eyes to try and restore some sight to them. "What's wrong?"

"There are people outside, I think we're in trouble," her sister said, and instantly Elsa was awake and jumping out of the bed.

"Look."

The windows weren't like those in the castle, continually polished and replaced and replaced. The townhouse windows were old and lined with cracks, kept because they were the only ones they had. Elsa could barely see out of them, but she could still spot…

"Fire?"

"Come on," Anna said, grabbing her by the sleeve of the thick woollen nightgown. She was still in hers as well. "We should find the others."

Elsa tore her gaze away from the fire outside and let Anna drag her from the room, not fully conscious enough to complain she should dress first. "Anna I can help. Maybe if I-"

But Anna was barely listening. "We should find Leif," she repeated. There was something else off about her as well, but she was still coming to and…

"Anna, why are you holding your sword?"

But her sister ignored her, her head snapping left and right as they strode the short corridor that led to the stairs downward. The place wasn't that big, but to Elsa right then it felt like a thousand miles long. She-

"Your highnesses!"

If anything could blow through her mind and remove the cobwebs of only a few hours' sleep, it was what was waiting for them as they turned the corner, and found Leif standing at the top of the stairs. In one hand he held his sword. It wasn't like the beautiful shining blade she had made for Anna. Leif's sword was simple, iron and steel, old and sharpened to a razor's edge not by magic but by endless hours on a grindstone. The tip of the blade was covered in blood. His other hand was held to his forehead, which was also covered in blood.

Elsa gasped and took a step forward, forgetting that he was her servant and she was dressed less than appropriately. "Leif, are you alright-" She stopped both speaking and walking as the man held up a hand.

"Please stay back your highness," he said, looking down the stairs.

"What's going on?" Elsa asked, confusion beginning to turn into something not exactly fear, but maybe something close to it.

Leif wasn't the one who answered her though.

"_BRING OUT THE WITCH!"_

None of the three spoke as the voice seemed to boom through the townhouse, a deep voice of rage and anger that seemed to reverberate through the bottom floor and rush up the stairs, right into her ears. Elsa felt a warmth next to her, as Anna stood closer to her sister and wrapped her free hand around hers.

"I'm right here," Anna whispered. "Don't worry, I'm right here."

_How many of them are there,_ Elsa tried to ask, but when she opened her mouth somehow the words wouldn't come, and she found herself choking on air. "How…"

"We're right here your majesty," Leif replied, and neither of them corrected him on proper methods of address. "My men are downstairs at the doors and windows. Nobody's getting in."

"How…how many of them are there?" she finally managed to ask, barely hearing the reply from the young soldier who had volunteered to guard her because she could hear her father's voice in her ear.

_Burning torches Elsa._

"…have them watching," Leif said to Anna, as Elsa came back to the real world.

"_Why?_ What do they want?"

"With all respect your highness what they want is…well…"

Elsa flinched as the booming voice came in through the windows again and permeated every inch of her being. _Is this it? After everything, all these years, you were right all along father?_ She could feel the tension ratcheting up inside her, crushing her like a vice. She rubbed her hands together and felt the skin crinkle and lighten and grow cold as ice formed on her like sweat.

Anna felt it too. She felt her palms tingle and something grab at her heart, and she turned away from Leif to see her sister. "Elsa, nothing bad's going to happen."

Elsa grabbed at her sister's hands. But when Anna looked into her sister's eyes she didn't see the fear or anxiety she had expected. She saw anger.

"I know," Elsa said, and her eyes blazed like Anna's sword.

Leif was too slow on the draw, and Elsa was already past him before he could try and grab at her and shout _your highness wait!_ Anna did the same, but turned at the bottom of the stairs to look at him. "Trust us," was all she said.

"Let me out," Elsa said at the wooden doorway that had guards either side of it. One blushed and looked away, the other just shook his head.

"Your highness please," Leif said from behind them.

"I just want to talk to them," Elsa said, not looking away from the door. Orange light flickered underneath the frame, as if the fire outside was just testing it, trying to find a way inside. Well, she wouldn't let it. She could look through an open doorway to the side to see the village headman and his wife and child sat at their table, looking scared. The guards at the windows were looking out and fingering their weaponry. These people were _her subjects_, and she wasn't going to let a single thing happen to them.

"That isn't a good idea. If you-"

Leif met the queen's eyes, and stopped talking.

"If I were you," Anna said, "I'd let us out."

SCENE BREAK

She resisted the urge to shield her eyes from the flames.

Outside the house, elements warred with each other. The heat of the torches fought with the cold of the night, and the light streaming from the lit wood drove back the night that covered the square outside the house.

_No weakness. Not now._

There were maybe twenty of them, hooded figures in brown robes, faces hidden by the heavy rough cotton. Farmer's robes, the kind you wore in the dead of winter when it was cold and dark but you still needed to collect that firewood or secure the harvest.

She could see the iron glinting at their necks and for a moment wondered if this entire thing had been a mistake. Then she saw the shape of them. Not the square-ish lump of the runestones, of followers she still didn't know how to acknowledge or thanks. These were crosses, thin and beaten and misshapen, but still recognisably crosses. They glimmered, the fire of the torches casting them in red and orange lights against the dark browns and blacks of the coats.

_Ah, of course,_ Elsa thought, and even though she was still filled with anger she somehow felt saddened by the whole stupid thing. _Isn't it enough that I'm trying to be a good queen?_

_For some people it will never be enough,_ her father's voiced called to her from beyond.

She narrowed her eyes. Something was wrong. It wasn't just torches that were burning, Elsa realised, looking beyond the ring of lights, up to the stars. The darkness shifted and moved in the distance, as smoke billowed up into the night. Beyond this little play, things were burning down in the town beyond.

One of the hoods stepped forward, and the real performance began.

"WITCH! _DEMON!"_

The man stepped forward, obviously the leader. His hood wasn't up and wild untamed hair flew around his face like a medusa's snakes as he looked between Elsa and his follows behind him. His face was all wrinkles and anger, contorted so much she could barely see his features. He carried a long heavy wooden pole with another smaller one tied across it with rope, the cross it formed topped with an iron head. Actual spittle flew from his mouth as he shouted through the night:

"_SEE!_" the man screamed at his…mob? Congregation? _"See how the witch walks the night! See how she controls the cold and dark! An unearthly creature! See how the sister follows, a corrupt woman with the ungodly weapon of the beast!"_

She cursed herself as the mob muttered and roared. She should have listened to Leif. Now she was stood outside in the dead of night dressed in nothing but a cotton dress. She hadn't worried about it because she had never really felt the cold. She should have waited. Should have listened to her friends. Should have-

"_Answer, demon!"_

She had missed it. She needed to stop doing that. She clenched her fists, feeling the tension swirling under her skin. Not now. "What do you want?" she asked, having to shout to be heard over the wind. She could look past the circle of cloaks and fire and see other shapes. People huddled against doorways out of the wind. She could see scared faces beyond the angry ones.

The man with the wild hair and the wide eyes stepped forward out of the semi-circle of hoods. "What do we _want,_ witch?"

"What's your name?"

He turned his head aside and spat. "I am a servant of the Lord, the only name I need invoke is His."

_Did you invoke it when you scared those people witless and burned their houses?_

"Did the lord command you to do _that_?" Anna said, pointed at the burning village, and Elsa could hear the anger in her voice. Somewhere in the darkness innocent people were trying to fight for their lives and homes, while the man who did it spoke about gods.

"He commanded your evil and corruption be rooted out."

"What exactly have I corrupted?" Elsa asked, trying to keep her temper.

He spat again. _He could probably keep that up for a while, the amount of saliva he seems to have._ Funnily, she wasn't scared of him. She stood unarmed in the cold, faced by two dozen men armed with flaming torches and farming tools, their leader standing feet from her holding a weapon that could have bashed her skull in at any moment, but none of it reached her. She could feel her power flowing through her, ready to strike, like a faithful guard-dog.

"Wherever you go evil follows. Good men and women turned away from the lord to worship false idols!"

"I've never asked anyone to worship me."

"_LIAR!"_ The man reached into his cloak and Elsa tensed, but all he brought out was…oh no.

The runestone was like a dozen she had seen in the castle, but this one was slightly different. The iron chunk was coated in red. She knew what it was. "_SEE!_ The sign of the beast!"

Elsa could feel Anna behind her, hand on her sword, her mind buzzing with anger. She didn't know how she knew it, but she knew Anna was seconds away from doing something…drastic. Part of Elsa wanted her to do it. Wanted her little sister to leap forward and use the sword she had given her. But maybe there was still a way. "I have guards inside this house. If you stand down now and answer for your crimes I promise fairness," she said, remembering the few times her father had said similar things to magistrates and lenders in the town who had gotten a little too greedy.

"The servants of the Lord will never bow to Satan," the man said, and tossed the stone. It hit Elsa in the chest, leaving a red mark against the white cotton of her nightgown. It fell into the snow and Elsa looked down to see it there, red against white. Red against white. Just like that night years ago on her birthday when the bear had come for them.

Another bear was here, now. And neither of them were children anymore. "Anna," Elsa said, wondering if she was really going to say it. Really ask.

"Elsa?" Anna replied, wondering the same thing. Wondering if she really could. She could feel her hand shaking just a little on the sword. This wasn't a wolf or a bear. It was a human being. It…

"This is your last chance," Elsa said, trying one last time.

"No, it is _yours._ Step down and be gone from this place and let a true ruler take your place, creature!"

"Never, _NEVER!"_ Elsa shouted.

"_THEN THE DEVIL WILL NEVER SIT THE THRONE OF ARENDELLE!"_ the huge man roared, and swung his cross, the iron head of the thing flashing in the torchlight and blinding her.

Elsa raised her hands, but she needn't have bothered. Three blinks, and that was it.

_One:_ The fanatic stood feet planted firmly on the ground, swinging the huge wooden cross at her face.

_Two:_ A white flash and a blue glow that flowed past her gracefully, almost like water. A graceful sweep of a white dress and Anna was between Elsa and her attacker, already swinging.

_Three:_ Red covered white as the blue glow flowed past her and through the man, where his head met his body.

Elsa held her breath as Anna stood in front of her, sword resting with its tip on the ground as her swing finished its glittering arc. There was dead silence in the square, the only noise the howling of the wind and the guttering spittle of burning torch-wax.

"I…I guess I can," Anna whispered, and Elsa was the only one who heard it, as the fanatic fell to the ground, his head severed cleanly from his body.

"Anna. Anna are you alright?" Elsa said, watching as Anna stared down at the man, her mouth moving but not speaking.

"Yes, I…I…" The redhead looked up. "Never mind me! Are _you_ alright?"

"I'm fine. But…"

The others hadn't moved a single inch, but she knew that wouldn't last. She strode forward, past the body of the man Anna had cut down, and faced them all. _I'm Elsa Arendelle. The crown-princess. The future queen. I don't have to be afraid of these people. I am their _ruler.

_Now, prove it._

"_ALL OF YOU!"_ she shouted, as loud as she could. "_I AM YOUR SOVEREIGN AND I COMMAND YOU TO LAY DOWN YOUR WEAPONS!"_

At first there was nothing, and one wild second Elsa felt the power surge through her and thought; _this is it. _Then, after two agonising seconds, one of the hoods at the farthest end of the semicircle around her dropped his blacksmith hammer, where it hit the cold snow beneath with a dull thud.

After that, the rest followed, and Elsa felt herself breathe a sigh of relief. She gathered it back in, and spoke: "Regardless of what people may say, I have never asked for your worship," she said. "I have never – and I will _never_ – force you to turn away from what you believe." She swept her gaze across them all. "But _I_ am the queen of Arendelle, and I will not suffer attacks against my people from rabid creatures and fools."

"Your highness!"

_Were you calling me that when your priest led you here? Or were you calling me demon and witch? How quickly people change. _"Your punishment is to go and repair the damage you've done today. Put out those fires. Help re-build those homes you've burned down."

"But…but they'll kill us!" one of the hooded figures wailed. It wasn't a semi-circle anymore. More villagers had approached from the darkness, watching, and the confused sect was breaking up, clustering into groups like sheep when the wolf came calling. They were twenty people in a village of two hundred, and their leader lay dead at Elsa's feet and they were broken without their head to lead them.

"No, they won't," Elsa said, loud enough to make sure the villages watching from beyond the circle heard her. "You will throw yourselves on their mercy, and maybe they'll work you like dogs, but they won't slaughter you like animals."

She gazed at them, cold blue eyes and fierce expression staring out at them from among the red and white of the blood and snow, and not one of them there didn't feel spellbound and terrified.

"Yes,"

"_Yes_ _what_?" Elsa asked, almost whispering.

"Yes, your highness."

SCENE BREAK

"You were amazing!" Anna said, gushing, as they walked back into the townhouse and Leif closed the door. The young man gazed at her as she entered, awestruck.

"I felt scared," Elsa admitted, and lied. She _had_ felt scared, but not for long. She had felt angry, vengeful. Then she had felt vindicated, and triumphant. _Let them wave their torches father,_ she though.

Anna was practically bouncing across the room. "For a second I thought you were just going to freeze them all solid!"

_I wanted to._ "This is better." _I wanted to._ "Anna, are you alright?" she asked delicately.

Anna turned to look at her, a smile on her face and her cheeks flushed with joy. "You're fine, so I'm fine," Anna said, and meant it.

_Anna, you just killed a man, _Elsa didn't say. She couldn't work up the effort to feel sad at the fanatic's death. Somehow she knew there would be trouble about it, but right then in the house with her sister by her side she simply didn't feel sad at _all_. "I'm just worried. Are you _sure_ you're alright?" she asked her sister, who not long before had cleanly cut a man's head from his body as easily as she could ballroom dance.

Anna leaned forward and pecked her sister on the cheek. Her lips felt hot after the cold outside. "You're sweet. I'm fine, I promise," she said, green eyes so luminous in the candlelight of the house that Elsa felt it tug at her heart just a little. She was breathing hard, the cotton of the nightgown sticking to her where she was sweating from the fast change from heat to cold and back to heat. It t_ook a little more out of you than you'll say,_ Elsa thought, watching Anna's chest rise and fall. Anna didn't want her to worry, and it just made Elsa love her more.

"You should change before you freeze to death." _She did it for you_, Elsa thought. _Only for you._ Anna just stuck her tongue out.

"Your highness," Leif said, stepping forward with worry etched on his face and making him look five years older. "We should go back to the castle. I insist. You aren't safe here." His hand was still on his sword, as if the headless body of the priest would stroll through, cross in hand, for a second try.

Elsa looked out of the window. "No, I'm safer here than anywhere else," she said, as from the kitchen door the village headsman and his family approached. He bowed before he reached her and said in a voice filled with awe;

"Your majesty."

Elsa didn't bother to correct him.

_There will be more runestones around the necks of the villagers,_ she thought as she climbed the stairs to finally get some sleep, and didn't really know where the thought came from. She knew she would be right though, and it was a _nice_ thought, somehow.

_A year and a half,_ she thought.

She dreamed of a crown.


	15. The Dam Creaks

Elsa dismounted from the horse the second the guards were posted at the gate – she wouldn't shut them, not even now – and practically bowled the prince over in her rush to get to Anna.

"Is this…"

"She's fine, she's fine," Elsa said, and she didn't know if she was telling Hans or reassuring herself. Anna for her part climbed down from the horse gently, like she was made of glass. Elsa tried to put a steadying hand on her side but Anna almost shoved it back off.

"I'm fine, really," Anna said, practically the first she had said since they had left the village behind. The morning after the near-riot had found the square outside the townhouse clear of both Christians and the body of their leader, only a red stain on the cobblestones evidence it hadn't just been a crazy fever dream. Leif had insisted they leave immediately and cut short their tour, and Elsa had agreed instantly. Anna had been quiet. Anna had stayed quiet, all the way back to the castle. She had changed out of the blood-soaked nightgown but she still clutched her ice-sword tightly, refusing to let it go.

Anna, please talk to me.

"I can't help but feel responsible for this your highness."

"Don't, it wasn't your fault," Elsa said. She knew she was being short with the man and that he didn't' deserve it, but she had bigger problems. Something was wrong with Anna and she didn't have time for anyone or anything else.

"But still…"

Leif approached Hans from behind and coughed softly. "They were crazed, your highness," the guardsman said. "It was a madness."

"A spreading madness?"

"Not if we have anything to say about it," Leif said.

"No." Even in the depths of her worry Elsa's mind still functioned, and she saw all too easily where that road lay. She had thought of little else. She faced the guard-captain and made sure he was looking directly at her as she spoke. "There will be no retaliation, are we clear? We aren't going to have any kind of…any kind of _inquisition_ in Arendelle." She could see her breath misting in the air, and pushed the power back down inside herself.

"We should at least keep an eye on-"

"That's _enough_ Leif," Elsa said, and let some of her worry turn into anger and leak into her voice. The guardsman clamped up like she had put a vice to his lips. "We'll discuss this later."

"Oh your _highnesses_!" a familiar voice cried out, as Gerda rushed out of the castle and practically bear-hugged Anna. Elsa glanced behind her to see Kai as well, and waved a hand; later. The old rotund man nodded, and turned back to the castle as Gerda mothered her almost-daughter.

"We'll have to do something," Elsa said, mind whirling, talking mainly to herself rather than Hans or Leif. "We should re-assure people. A speech?"

"There's time for that later," Hans said. "With all due respect your highness this is a discussion for you at your best, and you're nowhere near your best."

He was right. She rubbed her eyes and felt sleep around the edges trying to claim her. She nodded, and set off for the castle behind Gerda and Anna, still muttering to herself as her fatigued brain shot thoughts out, three a second.

"We'll need calm, room for speech. Some kind of concession maybe? Convince them he was mad? Not our fault. Say that? He did try to kill us, that's treason. But it's a delicate situation. Maybe something for his family, or would that be insulting? Should do something, prove something. Nothing we can do for him personally, what with being dead."

She heard it, barely, before Anna moved out of earshot. Little more than a whisper. Anyone else might have mistaken it for the wind, or the breathing of the horses, but Elsa would know her sister's voice in a blizzard. In a pack of roaring lions. She heard it.

"Good."

* * *

Hans had been right, as he usually was. When Elsa opened her eyes the next morning she had felt if not refreshed then at least something approaching human.

Anna hadn't been in the bed though. Her absence had been like a hole in her heart.

"There are more and more of them. He's right about that," Hans said, as he sat down in the chair closest to her. He tapped a hand on the wooden table. "It isn't bad, not yet, but there's a…division…forming. Not so much in the town and close to the castle, but in the villages out in the forests and plains there's something happening."

"Bad?" Elsa asked.

"Nobody's saying 'pick a side' yet, but…" Hands said, and put his hands out, palms-upward. _What can I say?_

Elsa sighed tiredly, and stared around at the room they were in as she gathered her thoughts.

She needed to do something about this room eventually. Her father had used it for meetings when he was alive. Arendelle had never used councillors or permanent advisors like other monarchies. King Agdar had always preferred to bring in the people actually involved in disputes rather than hear them at second-hand. He had told her once, sitting on his knee, you couldn't judge a man until you looked him in the eyes. He said it was more time-consuming on the crown and on its subjects, but that was a good trade for fairness and justice. When he had died Elsa had the tapestries and cloth taken from the room and stored – seeing them hurt just a little too much – leaving the wood and stone-work bare. The room was cold now, and she barely used it. Come the coronation that would change. She'd need her own symbols made up and embroidered. The crocus would always be there but some most kings added their own small symbol or seal to it. She would need to decide on that soon, too.

_A year and a half._

"Are you returning soon?" Elsa asked.

"The Southern Isles need their prince. All of them, it seems," Hans replied with a wry smile. Elsa had noticed that smile come and go whenever Hans mentioned his hometown, but she didn't want to offend the man by asking. She recognised the bitterness there because she had felt it herself. Hans reminded Elsa of Elsa. In the six months since they had first met at Elsa's nineteenth birthday the man had proven himself if not a friend then at least someone…understanding. In a field of princes and dukes all watching her like a hawk and wondering if they would be the one, Prince Hans asked nothing of her. He was _unthreatening_. The Southern Isles were too far away to be of any risk or much help to Arendelle, hugging Denmark like a remora hugged a shark, and Hans was far too junior to ever be considered a match for Elsa, even assuming she had wanted to…anyway.

He was like Kristoff. He wasn't afraid. To Elsa that carried more weight than all the crowns in Scandinavia. She'd tolerate the occasional whispers about the two of them if it meant she had another voice to confide in that didn't treat her like glass about to shatter or a powder-keg about to erupt.

"Leif may be right however," Hans said, and Elsa realised she had missed an entire conversation.

"Sorry?"

"About the…trouble."

"There won't be any witch hunts in Arendelle, Hans," Elsa replied.

Hans leaned forward in the creaky old wooden chair. "_That's the problem _your highness. They don't _need_ to search for a witch to burn. _They have one_."

He was right of course. He was absolutely right, and that was what made it infuriating. "There's nothing I can do about that," she said. "I won't apologise or hide who I am, or what I can do." _Never again, father. No matter how many torches or nooses._

Hans looked at the queen with something between pity and sadness. "It will get worse."

"We don't know that."

"'The devil will never sit the throne of Arendelle', was I believe the phrase he used."

"He was one man."

"One man and a village. You can't avoid this Elsa…" He paused as he used her name, as if asking permission, and she nodded. "From their point of view they have _proof_ of the forces of evil, and she's one and a half years away from taking the throne."

Elsa resisted the urge to say _that's not fair_, but barely. "I don't want this erupting into some kind of…religious _war_ or anything."

"People like Leif might not agree with that." Hans reached into a pocket on his light blue jacket and brought out…

"Leif and the others know not to cause trouble," Elsa replied, looking at the small runestone pendant. She could have just had them all banned. Maybe it wouldn't have solved the problem but it would make _her_ feel better.

God, why did it always have to be…_something?_ She had thought that maybe when she escaped the castle things would change. Her eighteenth birthday had _almost_ been flawless, had _almost_ let her really come out from behind the walls she had been hidden in all her life. This trip had _almost _gone perfectly. All she wanted to do was…was what she had _always_ wanted to do: She wanted to grow up, to take the throne, to lead and serve Arendelle as best she could. It seemed like the closer she got to that goal the more obstacles were put in her way. If she proved the existence of the Devil then maybe all this hardship was an existence of a God stopping her. Maybe she should lock herself in a tower like an old witch and let Anna take the throne, assuming her name wasn't tainted just as badly as Elsa's, and _that_ thought made her blood run cold.

No. She would never deny who she was again. One way or the other she _would_ solve this.

"Maybe you should consider reducing your time outside the castle walls. Maybe-"

"_No."_

Hans looked up in surprise at the steel in Elsa's voice, and saw twin blue diamonds staring back at him. "Your highness?" This did not feel like a good time to use her given name, permission or not.

"I made a promise to Anna that the castle gates would never be shut again. I won't break it, ever."

"Your highness, remember public knowledge of your...your _power_ is still fairly recent. Maybe people just need some time to get used to the idea of a queen who-"

"They have a _year_ to get used to it!"

"Your highness, please…" Hans whispered.

"_What?!"_

"My hands are frozen to the table."

Elsa drew in breath like she had punched and looked down. Hans' gloves were tinted blue where they touched the wood of the desk. A second later and he was wrenching them free with a hiss and rubbing them, but… "I'm sorry, you didn't deserve that."

"I understand it's frustrating."

"Do you?" She asked, more sharply than she meant to.

Hans blinked, and stayed silent for a second. Then: "I'm the youngest brother of thirteen your highness. I'm smarter than half of them and more suitable than... Well, I know what it's like to feel chained to something you have no control over." When he spoke now, she could hear the bitterness there clear as day.

Elsa didn't reply. There wasn't really a need to. She just stood. "I'm sorry your grace."

"Hans, please."

"I'm sorry Hans. I've been…it's been a trying few days."

"Your highness?"

"Elsa," Elsa said, on impulse. "Too many titles get in the way."

Hans smiled. "I agree completely. Elsa?"

"Yes?"

"If there's one thing I've noticed from my pleasant time here, it's that you seem to…take strength, shall we say…from a certain princess. Go and see your sister."

She nodded, and turned and walked out, trying to keep her hands from rubbing together from sheer nervousness. She forced them to stay apart, like quarrelling children.

_That isn't who I am anymore._

She had almost managed to convince herself.

* * *

"Anna? Can I come in?"

_Of course_ came the muffled answer through wood, and Elsa opened the door as gently as she could.

Anna hadn't been in the bedroom. She hadn't been down at the stables. She hadn't even been in the drawing-room that they had spent so much time in, sat at their mother's lap as the fireplace roared.

She remembered this room, even though she hadn't entered it in over a decade. It was still the same as the last time she had been here, when it had been dark and stormy and she had been barely old enough to realise how important that night would be. She remembered looking through huge glass windows at a mountain. She remembered her father's words, even now.

_This girl is Anna, and she's your little sister now._

The room had been stripped of everything but the bed, as if the king and queen had known it would never be called upon to see another birth. The bed had stayed though, covered in a white cloth to keep it safe from rot and moths. To Elsa though it looked like a burial shroud. Anna stood by it, dressed in a simple woollen green dress. One hand was on the bed, the other was clutching something white and red. The nightgown, Elsa realised.

"Do you remember?" Anna asked, not looking up at her sister's approach. There was a sadness in her voice that Elsa couldn't place but made her hurt just to hear.

"Of course I do," Els said, walking towards her sister slowly, as if she was treading on thin ice. She wished Anna would look up at her, instead of at the shroud-wrapped beddings. "It was…it's the most important thing I remember."

"I remember too," Anna said.

"What? I mean…I…"

"Not _really_ remember of course," Anna said, trailing a finger along the headboard. "But there are…there are _feelings _there. Pictures in my head you know?"

"What do you remember?" Elsa asked, almost holding her breath in the sudden anticipation that gripped her.

"Not much. There were…shapes. And sounds. I probably cried a lot."

"No, you were quiet," Elsa said, the memory suddenly pushing through to the forefront of her mind as clear as day. "You just watched us all."

"I remember you," Anna whispered, and turned. In the darkness of the room Elsa would have sworn her green eyes were glowing. "I remember I looked up at you and father and mother and I felt safe."

"That was all I ever wanted," Elsa said, and wrapped a hand around Anna's side. "For both of us."

"I know I should feel bad about it, but I don't," Anna said, and both of them knew what she was talking about.

"It wasn't your fault," Elsa said, glancing down at the bloodied nightgown in Anna's hand.

Anna twisted towards her sister so that Elsa had to let go, and looked at her full-on. "Yes it is. I _did_ it Elsa."

"Only because I gave you-"

"_No,"_ Anna said fiercely. "I wanted to. He was _hurting_ you and he was going to _kill_ you and I couldn't let him. He was…I _wanted_ to."

"You shouldn't think like that," Elsa said, having trouble getting out every word. She felt…touched. Off-kilter.

"Didn't you want to do it too? When he was threatening people like that? _Your_ people?" Anna asked.

Elsa didn't even think about lying. They were standing so close together she could feel Anna's breath on her face. It was hot, almost overwhelming in the cold air of the room. "Yes," she whispered.

"I know it's…I know older sisters are meant to look after younger ones."

"I tried," Elsa whispered.

Anna leaned in even closer, until their noses were almost touching. "You did. You always have Elsa. When I killed that bear years ago I knew you were behind me. When I was out in the forests I always felt you there, somehow. When I killed that man today – when I _killed_ him Elsa – I wasn't worried because I knew you'd be there if anything happened."

"Always." She was entranced. Bewitched, and she meant every word. "Only for you." She would stand aside and let Arendelle burn if it meant protecting Anna.

"Did you mean it when you called me your knight?" Anna breathed.

"Yes." Oh god. "_Yes_."

"Then let me protect you too," Anna said, eyes half-closed. "I love you, Elsa."

And then all it took was a small twist of her head, and a small push forward, and before Elsa could move or pull back Anna's lips were against hers.

She would melt. She would just be still and melt right there, as if all higher function had been removed from her body. All she could do was stand there and _feel_ as her sister's lips brushed against hers and Anna's breath flowed into her and down her throat like magma.

Anna shifted forward and the fleeting contact solidified and Elsa could feel her entirely, Anna's warm flesh against her own, and it was hot and prickly and made her feel like pins and needles were shooting through her face and she didn't know how to react. She wanted to pull away in shock, she wanted to push closer for more. Something thick and warm probed at her slightly-parted mouth and she didn't know whether she wanted to force it out or open up and let it all the way in as Anna's tongue lapped against her lips.

In the end panic won out over whatever feeling had come into her body with Anna's breath, if only for a second. She pulled away, stuttering as half her mind screamed at her _DEMON WITCH CREATURE_ and the other half screamed _YES MORE NOW._ She imagined she could feel Anna's hot breath swirling around her still and as she breathed out it came back up through her throat and mouth, warming and burning her as it did so, and when it reached her lips the noise that came out of Elsa's mouth wasn't one she had ever made before. Something low and soft and keening that tickled at her and made her feel indescribable.

She stared slightly downward as Anna's tongue withdrew. She looked at Anna to see an expression of…she knew that look, had seen it once before, when she had caught her kissing the vanished servant-girl. Anna looked like she wanted to devour her, or _be_ devoured, and Elsa in that second wanted to let her. She looked at her little sister and felt something lurch in the pit of her stomach as Anna licked her lips and a shudder ran across the green-clad body from her top to bottom.

"I love you Elsa," Anna repeated, her voice thick and drunk. She just stood there and looked at her, not drawing back or pushing forward.

"I…" Elsa didn't know what to do or say. She felt like the heat she had taken from Anna was swirling inside her, spreading to every corner of her being. She felt hyper-aware of her own body, felt her arms shifting in front of her nervously, hands exploring each other in nervousness like they always did no matter how hard she tried to stop it. She felt her chest moving up and down and brushing against her corset as she breathed. She felt the tops of her thighs rubbing together through her skirts. It felt like any movement she made would break a spell Anna had cast inside her.

And through it all Anna stood passively, waiting for some response. The look in those green eyes wasn't worry, not yet, but Elsa knew it would be soon. She just wished she knew what to do about it. She opened her mouth, not knowing what she was going to say until she said it. "I don't…I don't know how…" was what it ended up being, and she didn't know it but she was parroting Anna year ago, and Anna knew it and smiled.

_I don't know how to love you back,_ was what she wanted to say. She felt the heat sweep through her and settle deep in her belly where it pulsed like an angry thing.

"Do you love me?" Anna asked, no other question or rule mattering.

Elsa looked down into her little sister's eyes, almost in pain. "Yes," she said, and waited.

Anna just leaned forward and Elsa braced herself as the furnace raged on inside her. "You're all that matters to me Elsa, I won't let anything hurt you," she said softly, and kissed her sister gently on the cheek. "The monster's dead Elsa, your knight killed it. We're both safe now."

And with those words Elsa felt the tiredness and tension she had held all day flow out of her, like Anna had smashed a dam Elsa didn't even know she had built. She almost collapsed to her knees from exhaustion but she felt strong arms around her – Anna's arms – keeping her standing.

"You need to sleep. Everything will be better tomorrow. _Everything,_" Anna said, and just hearing her say that made Elsa feel better. "Gerda."

Elsa looked around in shock as she realised that Anna was actually talking to Gerda, who was standing at the door. Light streamed in from the corridor where the head maid stood, Anna disengaged herself from Elsa when she was sure her older sister could still stand and walked over, Gerda watching the both of them, concern in her face. Fear rushed through her for a second, but only for a second as her heart reached up to her brain and said _I don't care._

"Gerda, my sister has had an incredible day and is exhausted, and she needs a good night's rest all to herself, _without_ any snoring sisters." Anna turned back to Elsa, her face outlined by the light from Gerda's lamp, and the _expression_ there… "Can you please help her to the bedroom? And make sure she _stays _there, at least until afternoon? Prince Hans and Captain Leif and the others can surely wait a few extra hours. Post guards if you have to."

"Of course Anna, of course," Gerda said, not seeing Anna staring back at Elsa with green fire in her eyes, and Elsa thought; _how can she not notice?_ "And yourself?"

Anna smiled, a perfectly innocent smile. "I'll spend the nights here, for as long as it takes for Elsa to put this night behind her."

"I'll have servants bring some things through," Gerda said.

"Can you give us a second?" Anna asked, and closed the door gently. She walked towards Elsa, who watched her transfixed. Her hair swaying in the gloom of the night, the way the material of her dress shifted and crinkled with every step. The way it swayed from side to side with the movement of her hips.

"We're both tired," Anna said, and when Elsa opened her mouth to reply Anna held up a single finger to them. "Maybe it's that. Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe we're both crazy. Maybe…" she laughed, bitterly, and looked up into her sister's eyes. "I love you Elsa. I _love_ you. I don't care if it's wrong. I don't _care_. I feel better around you. My heart feels complete around you. I feel _more_ around you, like when we're apart the world is…darker." She held a hand up to her heart. "I know there's a part of you in me, from the first time you ever saved my life. If you love me back and you _know _it, come here. Come here and prove it. Knock. I'll wait."

There _was_ a part of her in Anna, there always had been and there always would be. If that was what was driving her towards her then she realised she didn't care. But she had to be sure. "What if…" Elsa started, not sure why she was asking when she was almost sure she her own answer to Anna's challenge.

Elsa could see that just saying the words brought Anna pain. "Then don't knock," she replied, and smiled in a way that almost broke Elsa's will right there. "I'll still be your knight, even if I can't be anything else."

There _was_ a knock at the door, and Elsa nearly jumped out of her skin as Gerda's voice enquired. Anna nodded and said _it's alright_ and then servants were pushing into the dim room with sheets and lanterns and furniture. Elsa let herself be led out and back to her – to _their_ – bedroom. She glanced once more at Anna and saw her lips move before the door closed.

_I'll be here._

* * *

**Chapter notes on tumblr.**


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